Moving through failure
Using failure as a stepping stone to success
Hi friend, thanks for checking in with me here today. I can talk for hours about overcoming imposter syndrome and moving past the fear of failure. But what about when you actually do drop the ball? In this issue I talk about how I work with perceived failure and transmute it into a stepping stone to success.
Being successful does not equate being void of failure. It’s quite the opposite, if you ask me. In my eleven years of entrepreneurship, I’ve had my fair share of small oopsies and a couple of big f*ck-ups, let me tell you. And when you shoot film, there’s also no way around it: you’re gonna mess up. What I think makes someone successful is how they respond to said failure. Text continues below image. 👇
Stoicism or whatever
I think we would all benefit from a more stoic approach to life, but especially when it comes to navigating failure. The stoic approach to something blowing up in your face would be something like: ok, that happened, now what? And by ‘now what’ I simply mean: what is the next step forward? We cannot change what happened, we can only control our response.
We tend to see failure as a step backward – I mean; we literally call it a ‘setback’ – but I would like to argue that there is no such thing as a setback. Bear with me here. There is only the way things are and the way forward. You can only speak of a setback if you have projected yourself into the future where things ought to have turned out differently. But the only thing you can work with is the reality of the now.
Embrace the entirety of the process
Accept the hiccups are an essential part of the process. It’s vital to learning anything. Things going awry is a signal that something needs adjusting, or sometimes you just have to try again. One failure or readjustment does not mean you are entirely incapable of the thing you are attempting to do. It’s not necessarily a sign from the Universe that you should stop trying. Simply take note of what needs adjustment and move forward accordingly. You got this, homie.
Falling flat on your face (slowly running out of ways to say ‘f*ck up’ here) is an opportunity to take radical responsibility, which I think is a huge part of not only doing business but is also a big key in self development. If you know me at all, you know I sometimes say running a business is like self development on shrooms. Because it is. It’s a continuous ego death inducing rollercoaster, and it’s beautiful.
Blessings in disguise
Sometimes there’s an opportunity for something better in things not working out as intended. It can be a true blessing in disguise. A redirection can be a beautiful thing, but you have to open yourself up to that opportunity to see it when it presents itself. If something doesn’t go your way, it’s not necessarily a failure. In a situation like that I like to ask this question, you may have heard it before: How is this the best thing that could have happened? Posing this question focuses your mind toward finding the gold in a situation where you might otherwise have gotten stuck on the desired outcome that you missed.
Expectations and radical responsibility
If we’re really getting philosophical for a moment (don’t worry, it’s a microdose), you can only fail when there are expectations. If you train yourself to have as little expectations as possible, it’s a lot easier to pivot when something happens. But Sabine, what about other people’s expectations? Well, you manage those as best you can by communicating clearly, and again: take responsibility for what you mess up and fix it to the best of your ability. Don’t be afraid to lose face. Actually, go head-first into that ego death. You’ll come out more successul and fulfilled on the other end, I promise.
Besides, you can only really ‘lose face’ if you mess something up and then you run and hide. I would advise against that. But when you take full responsibility and offer to make it up to them in a way that satisfies everyone involved, you may even make a more lasting impression to when you’d have done everything flawlessly. And you know, you’re human, rememba? People get it. And they appreciate it when you can acknowledge your own humanness and at the same time fully embrace making it better again. We’re all just doing our best here.
Gratitude
When you can reframe failure in the ways described above, there is room for gratitude. And gratitude is the very best attitude, my dude. When you can be grateful for all of your life experiences, including the f*ck-ups, the let-downs, the rollercoasters and the fiasco’s, you can find true contentment. Happiness isn’t found in everything being smooth sailing, you gotta surf the waves, bro. Just gotta catch that next one. I don’t know where that came from, I don’t surf. But you know what I mean.
Let me know your thoughts, share with me your biggest mess-up ever (in all confidentiality of course) and let’s heal this together, shall we?