Today I am going to write for you about something I saw a while ago that put a whole new perspective on something we all experience through life, but we learn, in general, to fear or avoid. We tend to think it is something bad and if it happens to us we feel horrible, basically.
Just do this small imagination exercise. What comes first to your mind when you think about failure? Does the above paragraph match most of your thoughts? Probably so. but you may also think "well it is horrible at first, but there is also a lesson we must learn, a precious one, and then we must move forward". Basically, we perceive failure as something horrible that, if we can, it is best to avoid so that we don't feel like crap after we experience it and then think "What now? What will the others think of me? I am a terrible person."
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There are times, and I tend to think many, when trying and failing is considered as a flaw. This helps a lot perpetuate the idea that failing is bad which may hold us back from retrying and taking chances with things. We may tend to avoid "risky businesses" and look for situations which are more likely to end in success. But this course of action may prevent us from learning new things, engaging ourselves in tricky situations which may require thinking more about possible solutions and engaging in "thinking outside the box" which then broadens perspective.
Because we tend to rapidly evaluate ourselves after a task, a failure might make us think that we are not capable to do some things or succeed at a certain task if we didn't get it right a couple of times. We also might think that said task is too difficult and out of reach for us to make another try at it.
One secret is to not make general assumptions when something doesn't go the way you wanted to. Especially don't make general assumptions about yourself (in psychology they are called global evaluations of self) by saying things like "I am a failure". The truth is you, as a person, are not a failure. You just did not succeed at a particular task, in a particular situation or circumstance. If you think about it, that is really the truth and it applies to a certain situation and you should not go on assuming failure in similar tasks or putting yourself down.
But then, there is another secret which, if you put your mind to it, it will change your perspective for the future to come and also you will learn not to take failures, in everyday life, so badly.
It just so happened that, one night, I was changing channels on the television sitting in bed when an interview caught my attention. The person who was being interviewed was the woman who invented Spanx. You probably heard about them because some stars/celebrities practically live in them. They are a piece of stretchy clothing that shape your body, so tight-fitted outfits look better on your body if you don't have a very toned figure. Spanx brought Sara Blakely world wide fame and lots of money also. But her way there was not easy at all, as you can imagine. It involved hard work, dedication and most importantly maybe, taking risks. So, of course, the talk about failure comes into discussion and she had something very interesting to say about it:
"Interviewer: What's the best piece of business advice you ever received?
Sara Blakely: It probably came down to
my father. When I was growing up, he encouraged us to fail. We'd come home from
school and at dinner he'd say: 'What did you fail at today?' And if there was
nothing, he'd be disappointed. It was a really interesting kind of reverse
psychology. I would come home and say that I tried out for something and I was
just horrible and he high-fived me. "
(source: Interview and article about Sara Blakely)
Also video interview:
Now how do you feel about it? Just let this idea settle for a while. Take it in.
I thought it was amazing. the underlying idea is the encouragement to try new things. and if you don't succeed it is OK. You can try doing it again if you really want to achieve it. Maybe if we were taught like this, since we were kids, we wouldn't be that afraid of failure.
I want to know how you feel about failure and how you manage it.
Feel free to leave a comment.
