Make failure work for you.

Like we talked about last week, “failure” is an optional, subjective assessment nearly all of the time. Very rarely do we factually fail. We miss an important meeting sometimes. We snip at our kids after a long day (especially one with remote learning). We do our best on our big presentation and yet we do not get leadership buy-in on our initiative. 

But we get to choose what story we want to tell about all of that. Yes, we can say that we’re failing at our calendar and failing at parenting and failing at moving our career forward. But is this helpful? Does it serve a higher purpose to label our effort as failure or does it just make us feel like bingeing Netflix for 7 hours under a nubbly blanket with a bottle of our fave rose? (Hint: while we may think it’s useful, beating ourselves up does not lead to long-term, sustainably productive action. It does sometimes lead to a burst of activity quickly followed by burnout, but you probably know that already.)

Most of what we call failure is just us being human beings, with human feelings and human lives. 

Does that mean we should just be satisfied with our current lives including any quiet desperation we may be feeling and our inability to quit yelling at the kids? No. There’s a lot we can do about all that. But labeling ourselves as failing at life is not helping us actually address those things. 

Instead, let’s flip things around when it comes to how you think about failure. I am going to invite you to consider the idea that failure is not a label for all the things you wish were different about your life, but instead as the exact way to get all the things you want in life. 

Stay with me. 

When we’re afraid of failure and we think everything we’re doing in our lives is failure, then we do not want to take any risks. We don’t want to try anything new, because we already feel like we’re failing anyways. Trying new things is just too much with all of our pre-existing “failure.”

But when we decide that everything in our existing lives is just us being human and that failure is the direct doorway to our goals, everything changes. It might feel disorienting at first. You’ve been running from failure your whole life and now I am asking you to run straight towards it. But after you get your bearings, you will find that this is a pretty exhilarating idea. 

Here’s how it goes. You stop telling yourself that you’re failing at life. Seriously, stop it. You start telling yourself the truth: you’re a human, doing human things, with human feelings. Not failing at anything. Do you have some goals you haven’t met yet? Yes, and we’re getting to those. 

Here’s what you do: to start, pick just one goal. Then, pick just one step of the goal (preferably the first step, but be wild if you need to, y’all). Then do it, with full permission to fail. (Failing is actually the point, but if you happen to succeed at it, that can be fun, too).

What this activity does is it makes failure the goal. It’s a win-win. Either you fail at the task, which counts as winning, since the assignment is to fail, or you actually succeed, and then you can move on to the next step and try to fail at that.

Why would you fail on purpose? Because giving yourself permission to fail and choosing to try to do things you’re not sure you can succeed at for the express purpose of failing is actually how you get yourself to do all those things you want to do but are not doing. First of all, it’s going to break your brain a little, in a good way. It’s going to give you some positive associations for failure. And second of all, it’s going to get you to take some action. Taking some action will either lead to success or learning. If you fail, congratulations. You did the assignment right. You’re changing your brain’s associations with the concept of failure and building a tolerance for trying new things. That’s big work. Then ask yourself why you failed and what you can do differently. Then repeat. 

And that brings us to this week’s challenge: pick something to fail at and then fail at it, on purpose. If you happen to succeed, pick something else. (You might seriously surprise yourself with how much you succeed at things you think you’ll fail at.) Not sure what to try failing at? Just think of something you want that you aren’t going after. It could be anything. Scheduling a whole day ahead of time and sticking to what you calendar, even when people ping you with “just this one thing.” Getting started on a slide deck for the wild idea you want to present to your boss, even though you don’t 100% know how it would work. Reaching out to that badass VP you’ve been watching and pitching her on mentoring you, even though you find it difficult to even breathe in her presence. 

It’s not about succeeding. It’s not about winning. It’s about giving yourself room to be ambitious and try shit. And if you do, you will blow your own mind with what you can accomplish. Trying cretes learning. Learning creates results. Are you ready to surprise yourself with what you can do when you’re willing to fail?

Feel free to come chat with me on insta and let me know what comes up for you when you try failing on purpose. 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 fail on purpose at speed and get some goals crushed before 2020 is over?
I’d be delighted to help you out with that. Also, bonus: my coaching packages are totally virtual so as to better serve my global audience (and yes, I’ve worked with people who are not native English speakers with great success). Learn more here.