A Failing Forward Perspective
Photo by Randy Tarampi
“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
There are a lot of things in my life I wish I did better. A lot of things I wish I hadn’t said. A lot of things I wish I hadn’t done. A lot of relationships I could have left behind earlier. A lot of words I could have shared. A lot of apologies and thank yous I could have given.
There is a lot I have failed to do. There is a lot I will fail to do.
And that’s okay.
Failure is one of those words that I have worked to shift into a new perspective for years now.
Growing up, failure was red ink decorating hard work and circling big letters that indicated my intelligence. Failure was met with a pat on the back and a good try when I didn’t win. Failure was everything I ached to get away from because success was the opposite of failure and in my life, there was just failure.
When I watched my parent's marriage fall apart – failure. It meant love had no success rate. Their relationship divulged into anger, resentment, and deep loathing. It taught me a version of success in love that exists, but shouldn’t be modeled.
Failure surrounded me when I watched my sister get her doctorate and master's at twenty-four (so incredibly proud of her), but then look at my life and create comparisons to two entirely different people. Failure is a subtle voice that lingers because, at thirty, I haven’t achieved financial independence and am still alone.
Failure is the hopes and desires my parents have had for me that I have still not met.
Failure can be hard. Painful. Isolating. Dividing. Breaking. Scary. Failure can be a lot of things.
But it can also be hope.
When I first heard Samuel Beckett’s “fail again” quote in a small college performance room, written on a giant whiteboard by our acting coach on the second floor of a building across from Capital Records, I didn’t understand it. In fact, I mentally couldn’t process why anyone would continue to want to fail. Society has so adeptly added negative connotations to the word ‘failure’ that making positive sense of a negative word seemed impossible.
It wasn’t until years after I finally started to put together a new definition of what failure really is and it has shaken everything up for me. (Not always right away, but the shift is positive.)
I have been looking at failure through the lens of disappointment and shame instead of opportunity and growth. I have exacerbated those hurtful feelings by reinforcing the negativity of the word inside my mind.
Even though the shift started to happen, it has still taken a lot of time to and takes a lot of mental power to actively think of failing as positive.
Sara Blakely’s story about failure is one I come back to frequently. If you don’t know who Sara Blakely is, that’s okay because I didn’t either. She is the founder and CEO of Spanx. A woman with a mission to make all women comfortable in their clothes. She also is a major reason I take lessons from my failures.
She grew up sitting around a table with her family every night being asked what they failed at today. The disappointment was never in the failure itself, but in not having something to share. Sara learned at a young age that failure was an opportunity and a chance to learn. It wasn’t something to beat herself up about rather what she could do differently. This offered her perspective into the world most of us weren’t taught.
Her success is built on failure. Steve Jobs success is built on failure. Joe Kudla’s success is built on failure. There is a plethora of people that have succeeded only because they saw failure as a step in the right direction, not a dead end.
While I constantly walk forward and keep working to shift this mindset every single day, I keep in mind that my success is only as wonderful as my biggest failure. But first, I have to be willing to fail. And fail forward we will.
Love Always,
Riss
