Redefining Failure
It’s easy to get down when things don’t go your way. Watching your effort, time, and money not work out how you wanted is not fun. We don’t do things that we don’t think will work. Take playing the lottery, for example. Even at some small level we hold out hope that maybe, just maybe, we’ll get lucky and win big. If you truly believed that there was absolutely no chance to win, you wouldn’t do it. What keeps you going is the slightest hope that there is a chance.
I’ve heard it said before that all human effort is an attempt to solve a problem. The issue is that often our attempted solutions end up serving us poorly and can even create new problems. The overeating to deal with unwanted emotions, the drinking to manage stress, or the excessive working out to the point of pain to deal with an unhealthy self-image, to name a few.
The reality is that the vast majority of us live our lives like buoys in a sea, tossed about by the whims of the massive currents below that we can’t see or anticipate. And our actions, whether good or bad, are all attempts to create certainty and security out of this perceived chaos. Because we are so caught up living “in” our lives, we never take the moment to step back and look “at” our lives. This leaves us in this unfortunate situation where our problem-solving efforts are no better than throwing darts in the dark.
We end up experiencing failure after failure which will can leave a bad taste of resentment and regret in our mouths. Eventually many give up, resigning to just stick to safer coping mechanisms to deal with this uncertainty. Failure becomes a dark and familiar enemy that is easier to avoid than it is to keep addressing.
But there is another outcome, another way of considering the situation that can change the way we perceive defeat. Instead of looking at failure as a problem, we can choose to view it as feedback. And in this light, feedback becomes the next step on the path to success.
“I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” I’m sure you’ve heard Thomas Edison’s famous quote to the point of triteness, but I want to revisit it here. I am a huge believer that there is no such thing as failure. Failure is simply a means for learning.
You can make the argument that the only failure is a failure to learn, but even then, I would offer that it was a lesson you were not ready to understand yet.
Though this thought is still forming in my head, I’ve come to experience it as true in life, both personally and objectively, as I watch clients have big break throughs in their pursuits. We continually bump up against the same issue time and again until we learn the lesson we needed to take from the experience. Though we are all on our own unique path towards individual fulfillment and self-actualization, the learning process looks the same.
You will continue to hurt your back lifting until you learn a better technique.
You will continue to get involved in bad relationships until you learn to communicate better.
You will continue to fall behind in business until you learn to embrace change.
You will continue to drink alcohol until you learn a better way to process stress.
You will continue to struggle to lose weight until you learn a better way to eat.
The list goes on…
The point is to step back and view your specific struggle in a different light. When you can stop looking at a failure as a frustration and instead choose to perceive it as feedback into what didn’t work, you can actually start to make a change for something better.
If we try to unlock a door unsuccessfully with a key, how long do you sit there and keep trying with the same key? Insanity is trying the same thing continually while expecting a different result as Einstein says. The quicker you can take that failed approach as feedback and move forward, the quicker you can get to a solution.
But instead of finding a different key, making sure we are turning the key the right way, or even stepping back to look at the situation to ask if it’s even the door we want to open in the first place, most of us just keep trying the exact same thing or give up in frustration at how the whole thing just isn’t fair. It’s easy to look at this analogy and see the absurdity.
That’s why it’s easy to be a “coach” for someone else to armchair quarterback their life. “If he had just seen the open guy there, we would have had a touchdown and won the game… What an idiot!?!” It’s much easier to tell someone else their drinking has become a problem than it is to acknowledge that your habit isn’t so healthy.
Why is it so hard to step outside of our head, to see things with clear eyes? Why do so many people hold tightly to their failed solution to a problem, refusing to let it go even if that means getting what they really want? Why does the drug addict return to the habit or the abuse victim return to the bad partner?
If they knew better, they would choose better. Remember, all human actions are an attempt to solve a problem. We judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. That’s why it’s easy to view your action differently than someone else doing the exact same thing.
Our actions are the best demonstration of what we understand. There is a big difference between knowing something intellectually and actually understanding it viscerally and experientially. If you say you want to lose weight, you may know that exercising and eating better will allow you to do that, but if you don’t actually do it, then the question comes up of if you actually understand it.
The reality is that we are all desperately trying to create a narrative for our lives – why things are the way they are. It’s only when we are able to let go of this that we are able to change. This is why we become so risk averse and failure avoidant. If we cannot see failure as a positive experience that provides valuable feedback, then we cannot put ourselves in a position to actually grow and change to be successful.
When we over personalize things in life and build our identities on the status quo, we become invested in avoiding change. But life does not work life this. Life is change. Nothing is permanent except for death. And even in death your body will decompose and pass away. When we avoid change and cling to what we know, we inevitably create friction and problems in our lives.
Self-authorship is essential to development. But it can be uncertain. Accepting that there are no rules, that you are responsible for your actions, and taking ownership of your decisions and their consequences can be scary. So scary that many choose to avoid this process altogether. What they don’t realize is that this avoidance just causes avoidable and unnecessary suffering.
The first step in this is learning to accept failure. Failure is part of the human experience; loss, letdown, and heartbreak are all optional though. When we embrace the process rather than the outcome, we no longer become so focused on maintaining what is. The pain of perceived loss is really a reaction to an overreliance on what that we allow ourselves to feel about that thing. Jobs, positions, status, and possessions are all things that come and go in life. Our efforts to make permanent that which is temporary necessitates pain.
The good news is that as we experience this pain, we have the opportunity to learn and grow. We do not have to repeat the same failure twice. The opportunity to become more and to absorb this new feedback and knowledge is what allowed humans to advance past the rest of the animal kingdom. It will also allow you to let go of the past to become more than just the sum of your thoughts and experiences. You get to define your future, one step at a time.
My challenge to you is to pause and reflect on an area you feel stuck in. What have you been trying that isn’t working or serving you well? What are you not trying that could be serving you better? Step back and consider the situation as a whole? Is this even something you want? Are you willing to accept the new pain that will come with this breakthrough you say you want?
Understand that failure is inevitable, learning is optional. Embrace the struggle!
