Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 1:18PM | Amy C perfecting the art of failing
failure
Failure. It’s such a taboo word—especially in the world of life coaching, where we’re taught and encouraged to focus only on success. I want to challenge that belief. To fail is inevitable. We all fail. It’s the people who embrace the experience, prepare for it, and learn from it that see greater success in life.
I realize this may seem counter-intuitive. How can you reach success if you constantly experience failure? It’s important to realize that success takes time. And it requires a certain amount of failure.
Think about it. There’s the cliched example (how many times does a child fall down while learning how to walk?) and the unexpected (some of the most successful start-ups are the result of a lot of failed companies). Failing is a rite of passage. Can you succeed without failing? Probably (although I’d secretly wonder how long the success would ultimately last). Do I want to? No. Not in the least.
finding the balance
When you set a goal, it’s imperative to visualize your success. It helps create a tangible and reachable path. It helps to map out the steps you’ll need to take to get there and how long it might take. It helps you believe you can do it.
But preparing for the rough spots, the pain, and the failures, is just as important. I’m not recommending you succumb to deep pessimism (that would totally defeat the purpose), but in acknowledging and accepting that failing will be part of your journey, you will be better prepared—and, I believe, see success quicker.
humility
My wake-up call for this lesson happened a few months ago. When I moved to Hawaii, learning how to surf was at the top of my list. I was the girl who had a subscription to SURFER Magazine at the age of 13. My bedroom walls were plastered with posters of Tom Curren, Brock Little and Kelly Slater (back when he was just starting out). I wanted to be a surfer.
And I’d “technically” been surfing as a teenager and young adult. I’d been out on a 9’ long board in Newport Beach, CA. I’d gone out to Sebastian Inlet, FL, during college with a borrowed short board. And I’d made a few attempts when I was studying abroad in Australia, but ended up forgoing the board and enjoyed body surfing instead. My line was, “I’ve been surfing, but I’ve never surfed.”
After 15 years of living in a land-locked state, it was more than time to attach the leash to my ankle and get back in the water.
My first week was great. I was catching the white water and standing up. The days were sunny, the surf was gentle and I loved it. And then I began to fall more often than I stood. Despite being much better prepared in fitness and strength, I kept falling. A lot. And worse than that, I found I wasn’t having fun anymore.
I cried. I felt frustrated. And I hurt myself (including, but not limited to: a huge goose egg above my ear from the board hitting me, a sprained ankle from falling in shallow water and a bruised tailbone from falling in shallow water—would I ever learn not to fall in shallow water? I wasn’t sure.).
I couldn’t figure it out. Why wasn’t I having fun? What made it so hard for me to go out and enjoy myself? I can now admit I was pretty harsh and really had it out for myself. I had somehow expected to not only be good at it, but to love it immediately. I mean, why wouldn’t I love it? I did when I was 15. That makes perfect sense, right?
I wanted to feel that rush of excitement. I wanted to smile and grin and laugh more often than I was crying and getting mad over it.
After yet another injury, I stopped. I stopped fighting and I stopped surfing. Somehow, something deep inside of me told me I needed to slow down and re-think this whole surfing-thing.
my a-ha moment
It finally came to me, after a few days of not surfing, what had happened. As I sat on shore, watching my friends catching waves out on the water, I wrote in my journal. I began to realize that I had been experiencing a lot of transition in my life (a new marriage, a new home, a new career, a new sport). I’d been so focused on packing up our apartment, getting things to our storage unit and tying up the loose ends of our wedding, I hadn’t given much thought to Hawaii or what our life would be like here.
And I certainly hadn’t given much thought to what it was going to take emotionally to learn how to surf. Because here’s what I hadn’t realized: whenever you set a new goal—especially when it’s learning something new—you’re going to fail.
And because of everything else that was going on in my life, I didn’t have the reservoir of strength and aplomb to bounce back from every fall and tumble. Each bout of salt water through the sinuses created more pain than I was capable of absorbing. I hadn’t anticipated the effect of the inevitable learning curve. (And I’ll warn the wanna-be surfers out there right now: there is a looooong learning curve to surfing. It’s brutal even when you do have realistic expectations.)
shifting your mindset to fail
As I shifted my perspective over the following weeks, I realized that I was going to have to fully embrace failing. And that meant listening to myself closer and knowing when I had the needed strength, when I didn’t, and to assess my options accordingly.
Because learning something new requires you to fail. And fail. And fail again. The better you strive to be, the more you need to fail. And that’s a good thing.
Failing builds strength. It increases confidence. It maintains humility and balance.
success at failing
Here are some tricks to succeeding at failing:
- Expect it. Just knowing you’ll fail can take the edge off the disappointment that accompanies it.
- Recognize it. Visualize what failing will look like. When it happens (or it becomes clear it’s about to happen), you’ll be able to say, “Okay, so that was a fail. Let’s pick up and get back on track.”
- Identify it. Sometimes a “lack of success” can seem like “failure.” But be careful: not succeeding isn’t necessarily synonymous with failing. Falling off my board is an experience in how to fall. (I often wonder what a day spent purposefully falling would be like. Would I start thinking of falling as success? Start judging my falls on a scale of 1 -10, best to worst?) Sometimes what we think of as failing is really and truly (no matter how trite this is going to sound) an opportunity to learn and grow.
- Embrace it. When the inevitable comes, embrace it. Revel in it. Could you find yourself saying, “Huh. Now that wasn’t so bad”? Yeah... I thought so. When we build up failure as something big and scary and all-encompassing, we give it far more power than it deserves. When we accept it for what it is, we maintain perspective and it becomes just another part of the process—in fact, it can become our most valuable experience.
- Celebrate it. Yep. I’m serious. Celebrate your failures and they become part of your story—part of your journey and experience that makes your particular adventure unique.
making peace with surfing
I have made peace with surfing. And in fact, I am falling in love all over again. I now know that paddling, waiting, reading the waves, tumbling, getting tossed and riding the face of the wave is all part of surfing.
Reader Comments (6)
Failure is essential!!! We must fall down, to learn *HOW* to get back up and dust ourselves off!!! This is an awesome post, Amy! It seems to me that more and more, kid's parents today, try to shelter their children from failure. Why, dear gods, why? EVERYONE fails at something, and most of us... at LOTS of things. This is how we find out who we ARE, and who we are NOT. Kudos to you for focusing your topic on this, today. When I was a kid, there was no "fourth place" on the three-tiered podium. If you came in fourth, you lost, and you learned to either be better next time, or to focus your energies in other, winning, directions. I'm not saying we should teach children to give up, especially on goals they want to achieve, but I am saying that losing is part o life, and that much much more can be learned from losing, than winning. In my opinion.
exactly! I treasure my lessons from defeat and failure far more than my successes. It has taught me what I love, what I want, and, as you said, *HOW* to get there.
Well done Amy. Imagine if we could one day pass this type of experience down to younger generations. If only we would listen and read stuff like this in our late teens and twenties. :)
I love it: the photos, the honesty, the inspiration & the pragmatism. A fabulous point, beautifully made. aloha nui
Gorgeous post Amy. To learn something you must first fail at it - what a beautiful lesson to take away.
And because of everything else that was going on in my life, I didn’t have the reservoir of strength and aplomb to bounce back from every fall and tumble - This line made me tear up! I've been there too. When the world is whirlin all around and expecting me to follow suit..
Great post once again, Keep on blogging!
Thank you Steph. I really appreciate your words of encouragement. :) And glad you enjoyed the post.