Did you cringe a little when you read that chapter title? Don’t worry; I cringed a little when I wrote it.
The word “fail” is the four-letter “f word” to many. It’s painful, ugly, humiliating, and just unacceptable. Ask any out-of-control dad at his kid’s Pop Warner football game and he’ll tell you so. And watch out for the vein on his forehead; it’s about to burst.
And it’s not like I’m the first person to talk about this. The Internet is riddled with articles about how important failure is for us. Psychologists, scholars, and teachers talk about this regularly. But still, there is something inside us all that has a really hard time with failure. I believe for women, perfectionism and our outward appearance and perception of others often fuels our fear of failure, which is tragic if you think about it. We’re afraid to try something new because we fear people’s opinions of us. When, in reality, “those people” are probably just as afraid themselves and/or perhaps don’t really care as much as we think they do.
Sort of ridiculous, don’t you think?
Here’s the good news: everyone has failed. Whether it’s been on a test, a relationship, a business venture, a new idea, Rollerblading, trying to bring thong leotards back in style, anything at all. Everyone takes risks and gambles every day; it’s a part of life. And sometimes it doesn’t work out.
Think about a specific situation where you’ve failed. How do you tell the story about it? For instance, let’s say you started a business, used your savings to fund it, and ended up having to close it. When you tell someone about it, do you say, “My business went under, I lost everything, and it sucked. I wish I would have never started it. It was a stupid decision.” Or, do you say, “Unfortunately, I had to close the business. I learned so much from the experience and loved it.”
You get to choose how not only you look at the situation, but how you relay the story to others. When you think about or talk about your failure, how does it make you feel? If it makes you feel shitty — and by now you should know what I’m about to say — it’s time to recreate your thoughts about the situation. You have total and complete control over those thoughts and how they create your feelings.
The hard truth is that if you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried hard enough. And if you haven’t tried hard enough, you’re playing small. And if you’re playing small, that’s your true failure.
When you think of your favorite athlete, author, or actor, do you think about how many times he or she has failed? No, you think about how awesome you think he or she is.
When you’re headed out to whatever the afterlife is, here on earth no one will talk about how many times you failed when you were living. No one will give a shit that it didn’t work out with knitting that blanket or starting that business or making a soufflé. No, they’ll think about and talk about how fantastic you were. But how will they know about how awesome you are if you spend your life playing small in fear of failure?
I meet women all the time who are afraid of doing something they want because they are afraid of failing at it. Many of them think they need to get to a place of fearlessness before they take action.
Here’s a secret: I hate the word “fearless.” I think it’s bullshit. I have yet to meet a person who is completely absent of fear. We all have it in varying degrees. It’s just that some of us choose to push through it and others don’t. You choose the group you’re in.
In the movie Three Kings, George Clooney’s character Archie says, “The way it works is, you do the thing you’re scared shitless of, and you get the courage after you do it, not before you do it.” And I totally believe this to be true. So, if it is true, if we get the courage afterwards to do that thing we’re scared shitless of, that thing we’re afraid of failing at, would that change the way you did things? What if I told you that everyone you think is courageous had found their courage after they took action? Would that give you a push?
The only failure is not trying. It’s a true failure to allow your inner critic to live your life and make your decisions. It’s a true failure to play small and safe for fear of looking bad to everyone else.
And you’re way too good for that.