You Deserve to Fail

Hopefully I’ve grabbed your attention! In the last post we learnt how to celebrate ourselves so that we can confidently start our new projects. Even you haven’t read it yet I suggest checking it out first here, I’ll wait 😉

So let’s dig a little deeper, because being your own champion is great, but it doesn’t address the underlying issue. You need a plan for when you do fail so that you don’t fall into old patterns of self-judgement. For that I really suggest that…

You really do deserve to fail.

Hear me out. Chances are, as an ambitious professional, you’ve heavily relied on your ability to achieve to get you thus far in life. This really doesn’t need to be the case anymore, and let’s face it, is it working out? If anything, the pressure of needing it to be right, or good, or a certain way is stunting your progress. I speak for myself too. 

I remember when I was in year 2, 7 years old. I gave in some handwriting homework. The teacher gathered us all in the reading corner and went through our work one by one, grading our efforts. I awaited my turn, listening as she gushed over the neatness of some pupil’s work, and cast disapproval over others. Finally, she reached mine and I don’t think I was prepared for such a reaction, but she was so appalled by my work that she verbally tore my efforts to shreds in front of the entire class, her criticism felt much crueller than for anyone else and it left me in a state of shock. At the time it felt being thrown to the lions as she launched ridicule after ridicule, and how she expected more of me (for I was a bright kid) my way. Of course she gave me the lowest grade of everyone, and that was my first ever experience of failure.

Needless to say, I was so embarrassed and, in that moment, felt utterly worthless; in one fell swoop she taught me that, for me at least, there was zero tolerance for error, and if I was ever subpar, I would be shown up as a disappointment. 

When we’re young, not knowing any better, we deal with these cornerstone events the only way we can – defensively in a bid to never experience the associated trauma ever again. From then on that’s exactly what I did. I strived for , often feeling dissatisfied in my endeavours when I fell short of this unrealistic expectation, even though I was achieving great things. As well as anger that this rule only applied to me, because I thought I was always expected to do well.

Take Action

If you have done something similar, don’t despair, you did what you had to at the time. Know now that you are allowed to fail. More importantly, you’re allowed to feel exactly what it is you associate with failing – be it incapable, a disappointment, an embarrassment or whatever else. Go deeper, who are you a disappointment to? Yourself? Is this even true? Your family? Do their values serve you anymore, did they ever?

Identify what it means you would be if you failed. and know this rule you’ve set yourself no longer serves you, it doesn’t even make sense. Would you tell an infant learning to walk they were a disappointment when they stumble? Would you berate your best friend for trying something new and messing up? Of course not! So why do we do it to ourselves?

Give yourself the grace to allow and embody exactly what you’ve been fearing, and watch how the intensity of the initial feelings gradually fall away leaving behind the real you. Embodying these feelings says nothing about you as a person, your worth is completely unrelated. You are not a disappointment, or lesser, or incapable. You’re human. 

Now imagine how freeing it would feel if it were okay to fail without any repercussions, if it were the norm, even celebrated. It’s not that we ever intend to fail, but can you feel there’s a sense of relief in removing the need for a certain outcome?

If failing were a luxury, a valuable asset you never afforded yourself, what are the things you would try? How far from your comfort zone would you stretch? There is something exciting about that. I told myself I was never allowed to fail, and now I can, as many times as I want and it says nothing about my worth, in fact opens me to more possibilities. How brilliant! I wonder what will happen?? 

If your inner child still needs permission to fail from someone, consider it granted.

It’s down to you

With all that said hopefully you feel able to get out of your head and pick a thing to try. It really doesn’t matter which, pick the first thing that comes to mind and take one small step towards it. It could be as simple as researching who does the thing locally, or making a mark on a sheet of paper, writing a sentence on a page.

You’ll see that you’ve made the first moved towards your new endeavour and lived to tell the tale! Now rinse and repeat, and remember you have the right to fail and switch it up at any time, remove the judgement and feel the excitement in the exploration..

Hopefully now you can start your next project with a little less pressure to succeed right away.

I would love to hear what you’re working on and if you found this helpful you can comment below or send me a message via the contact form.