Failure is an invitation to grow.

I read one time that when people we admire mess up, we like them even more. We see them as more human and we like that about them. It makes them more relatable. While we may not enjoy messing up, while we may think it makes us look bad, I think it’s fascinating that the opposite may be true for those who interact with us. They may like us more.

It’s a fun way to see things, I think. Especially since never messing up just isn’t actually an option for those of us living the human experience. 

Although, it’s important that I also point out that “failure” is nearly always a subjective assessment. Very rarely do we factually fail at anything, except tests. Most of the time, when we talk about failure, we’re talking about the subjective experience of it, which is to say, we’re talking about our own internal narrative and the meaning we’re assigning to the circumstances of our lives.

For this week, we’re not going to dive into all that. We’re going to discuss failure through the lens of the idea that humans are all imperfect and thus we all fail sometimes. 

And that brings us to this week’s topic: the side benefit of failure. Not only is it possible that others will like you more when you mess up on occasion, but mess-ups and failures always come with a side serving of growth. Now, we don’t always take advantage of that side serving. I see plenty of people leave it on the proverbial plate. But if you want to grow, if that’s part of what you’re trying to do in life, that’s always available to you when things go sideways. 

For one thing, failure can show you where you have gaps in your skills, processes, etc. When things fall through the cracks, you can think that sucks. Or you can think it’s time for some new systems to make sure it doesn’t happen again. When you do a talk in front of your boss and you forget a full third of it, you can think that sucks. Or you can think, next time I’ll rehearse more. 

And moreover, failing is often a step forward on whatever path we’re on, even if it doesn’t feel that way at the time. We all have these fantasies of being able to achieve our goals, somehow effortlessly arriving at the ability to do some magical thing that we’ve never done before. (Or maybe I am the only one with these fantasies??) But in real life, it looks more like being willing to fall down over and over again and rip your jeans and bruise your knees and screech out a string of curse words that would make your grandma blush ... and then keep going. 

Failure is part of life. I was going to say that it’s part of trying, but what I’ve learned is that even if you are in a place where you’re not pushing your growth edges that much, it can still feel like you’re failing. Sometimes it feels even more like you’re failing, especially if you’re spending a lot of time in your own head comparing yourself to other people. I felt like this all the time when I was in my 20s in grad school and trying desperately to figure out what I was going to do with my life but also not doing a whole lot of anything about it besides crying and drinking a lot of whiskey.

There was growth available there, too, although it took me a while to see it and say yes to it. 

For this week’s challenge, let’s time travel back to something that you consider a failure in your own life. Even if it was something you’d never want to relive again and would never wish on another person, is there something beneficial you got out of the experience? Can you spot the side serving of growth from your current vantage point? You can do your own discovery here, but what I’ve found is that many of the experiences I struggled with the most while they were happening have given me the most growth. Often one failure gives us the exact blueprint for how to avoid a repeat situation. 

Feel free to hit reply and let me know what comes up for you when you think about failure this way. And if you want to keep up with others who are also doing this challenge, come comment on my Friday Q&A posts to share your fail-wins, ask questions, and more!

Ready to really rewrite your ideas about failure ASAP so that you can go full steam ahead on some wildly ambitious goals?

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