Failure has become a controversial word today. It's a word avoided in polite society.
You haven't failed...you've merely had a learning experience. We are all winners really. There are no losers, we are all equally as good as one another.
I hear people saying this to each other in business settings, universities, in social situations and rather worryingly in school. In fact we've discarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd badges for 'I'm a winner' badges for all instead...says it all really.
My question to you then, is what is actually wrong with failing?
Why are we as a society hell bent on avoiding failure? What do we make failing mean about ourselves, who we are, and what we're capable of?
I'd say that how you relate to failing is very much dependent on, let's say the 'era you are from'. You see when I was at school, oh so long ago, I certainly remember failing things and, though I'm not going to go into raptures about 'it didn't do me any harm' blah blah blah, I do think that we are missing a trick when we protect others, adults and children alike, from failing.
You see failing is often an amazing opportunity to discover what we are good at, what we are not so good at. What we gravitate towards and what we feel we'd like to get better at, or never do again!
It's helps us to build our psychological resilience, allows us to develop other coping mechanisms and self-soothing strategies. It can enhance our communication and problem solving skills and also allows us strengthen our grit, determination and gives us that undeniable fire in our belly!
My question then is to flip the original proposition on its head....where would we be without failure? Did someone say 'snowflake generation?' ; )
Though we will discuss failure a lot more here at APE, in today's video I begin this dialogue about failure and look at how we need to revisit this word and take ownership of it. I also discuss how we can learn to flip it on it's head to start too see things more positively...not in a defensive 'Oh, I've learnt so much' kinda way, but on a deeper level, so here we go...
I'd love to hear from you on this topic. Is anyone brave enough to share a failure from their own life and then tell us something good that they feel has come from it?
Do comment below, or if you'd like to share something privately then do email me at serena@apemodelpsychology.com
Til next week!
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