Learning to fail with style

How to Fail with Style

Step 1: Take the leap

Before you can fail, you must take a leap of faith. You have to sign up for the class or try out for the team or join the club. You have to know what you want and go after it. Taking the leap is the hardest part. Don’t miss out on life because of fear.

Step 2: Keep commitments

Growing up, I was never allowed to quit an activity mid-season. I could choose not to sign up for another year, but I had to follow through. This is important when it comes to accepting failure and moving on with a clear conscience.

Life can be hard, but that doesn’t always mean you are failing. Keeping your commitments will help you know the difference. Even if you learn you are not cut out for a particular activity if you finish you are already winning.

Step 3: Accept defeat

Ok so you took the leap, kept your commitments and it still didn’t work. You just weren’t made to play guitar or skilled as an artist or a brilliant poet. Once you can accept that you may not be the world’s next whatever, you can move on to try something new. That doesn’t mean you never play the guitar again. It just means you are being realistic about how far that particular skill will take you in life.

Step 4: Learn from mistakes

I’ve made a lot of mistakes; too many to count. But if I am good at something, it’s squeezing my mistakes for any positive drop of information I can take with me. Learning to accept correction is probably one of the most important lessons we can learn as children, adults, employees….You get the idea.

No one on earth will excel at everything, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a few things along the way. We all have our low moments. Figure out how they can help you and rise above.

Step 5: Forgive

Forgiveness makes the world go ’round if you ask me. When we learn to forgive ourselves for stupid mistakes, we can forgive others who do stupid things. I get so mad when I spill things. I mean I get visibly shaken and I just don’t understand how I dropped the cup or splashed the sauce when stirring. Sometimes I let out an audible sigh of exasperation. Recently, my son Calvin (age 3) came up to me and said, “That’s ok mama. Accidents happen.” And he was totally right. He extended forgiveness to me for my mistake and I really needed it.

It’s time to bring  the expectations back down to normal levels so we can be free to try new things, succeed at some and fail at others and remind ourselves that life is a journey to experience, not a race to be won. Failure teaches empathy, understanding, value, and resilience. I’d be a fool to keep that opportunity from the people I love.

So while I appreciate the free stickers, I’m going to keep failure on the table and focus on the fact that yes, learning rocks.

How do you approach failure? Do you have any tips to add on failing with style?