Why on earth would it ever be okay to fail? Here’s a handy life reminder that you’re probably aware of, but probably not brilliant at putting into practice.
It is perfectly okay to fail.
You don’t have to be excellent at everything you do first time out. You are allowed, nay encouraged, to suck at stuff.
Failing is something that humans do a lot – it’s why we have version control. Trouble is, we’re constantly bombarded with images of perfection that we feel we can’t fail, or everyone around us will instantly flick into judgemental mode.
It’s also something that happens a lot to creative types, and it’s something that can easily provoke all kinds of crises when it does happen. You might have written an absymal first draft that you’d rather use as toilet paper. Maybe your first attempt at using a new painting medium turned your creative output into something fit only for your mother’s fridge door.
Whatever it is, we panic when we fail. We’re supposed to be good at this stuff, right?
Well you have two choices. You can fail, and give up. Or you can fail, grimace, and have another go.
If at first you don’t succeed…improve it later.
Some people are perfectly okay with failing. Not only that, they’re able to look at why they failed, and improve that little aspect so that next time they do better. It’s a process of constant refinement.
This is essentially the point of failure – it forces you to get things right. If you continually succeeded first time round, you’d get bored, because you’d never be challenged.
But if you constantly have something to tweak, streamline or practice, you have something that inspires and motivates you to get better at whatever it is you’re trying to do.
After all, you can’t get into a car for the first time and expect to drive like Lewis Hamilton, so why would you try writing and berate yourself for not immediately being J. R. R. Tolkien?
Don’t pressure yourself to succeed first time out.
Occasionally you’ll have a go at something and be a natural. It’ll all fall into place, and you’ll think “Hey, this is easy!” If that happens, then go with it.
Embrace it.
But remember that you’ll still need to practice. But if it doesn’t happen, and in all honesty it probably won’t, then don’t beat yourself up about it.
Ask yourself this – did you enjoy whatever it was you tried? If you didn’t, are you likely to enjoy it if you improve? If you did, then don’t you want to continue doing it just for the enjoyment of it? After all, the more you do something, the better you’ll get anyway. It’s just practice.
Use mistakes to your advantage.
Not every mistake is a bad thing. The slinky, penicillin, potato chips, pacemakers, microwaves, Scotchguard and Post-It notes all started out when their creators tried to do something else. Just because something doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong – it’s just different, and could potentially be better.
So that historical romance you tried to write which turned into steampunk, or the political thriller that became a sci-fi epic, isn’t a mistake. It’s just not your original intention.
Whether you improve or not is up to the amount of time you do, or don’t, devote to practice, but don’t immediately give up as soon as you fail. Just try again!
Over to you! Do you think it’s sometimes okay to fail? What did you do the last time something went wrong?
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Love this, well said! My first attempts at something new generally fail and sometimes even the techniques I use regularly fail (probably due to rushing or lack of concentration). I am very good at beating myself up and putting too much pressure on myself to succeed. It doesn’t help that on social media we always see everyone’s “perfect” photos and don’t always see the failures and mishaps they made a long the way. A thought provoking post x
I think one thing we all need to do is stop seeing everything in pass/fail terms. Pass/fail leaves out the benefits of process.
Crafting has a lot of great examples of this. I’ve seen so many people get frustrated because the work wasn’t done yet, and pay no attention to the joys if doing the work itself.
Besides, if you really do enjoy creativity, you’ll never have *everything* done, so as long as you’re hitting your major milestones and learning to refine your methods along the way, why beat up yourself?
Exactly. Like I now know I can’t watch Penny Dreadful while I knit Fair Isle or it’ll all go wrong!
Oh hell yeah. I think it’s fine to fail…. BUT only if you use it to your advantage. After all, waste not, want not.
Yeah! Plus it’s rare to get anything right on the first go.
What a wonderfully uplifting post. Giving yourself permission to fail means giving yourself permission to be creative. Your reminder did me good today; thank you!
I’m glad it helped! 🙂
You hit me right in the feels!
As a perfectionist I suffer from massive fear of failure. To me, failure means doing anything less than my best. I have to constantly remind myself that I have to set the bar somewhere in order to improve (I tend to get paralysed and do nothing when I worry that I can’t do something to my usual high standards). I’m going to print this post and stick it on my fridge as a reminder!
Glad it helped! Being paralysed by perfectionism seems to be all too common.
These are really great reminders! I used to struggle with fear of failure. I hated the feelings and negative self-talk that failure evoked in me. But now I look at failure as an opportunity – to grow, learn, and take a step back and reconnect with my goals and why I’m working toward them.
Exactly! Mistakes can be great teachers.