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What can we do for the Glory of Failure project in our own lives?
Jonathan has put lots of suggestions on how to get more involved in the “Whether you have lots of time, some time or NO time - you can still contribute! Find out how here” discussion thread and I’ve been doing some of those.
I have a ‘how do I translate this into my daily life’ feeling though. When I come across an unhelpful reaction to failure, or have that reaction myself, what can I do?
I was talking to Roxanne about this last week and she phrased it as “how do we help others embrace failure?”
So my question for this discussion is: what ideas for effective ways to embrace failure do you have and do you have any examples of where you've done just that that we can all learn from?
One idea to start with is to look out for when someone is labelling themselves ‘a failure’, as opposed to saying they have failed at something, and to challenge it. This might involve asking about what they learnt from it and how they can use that learning, and it might involve memorising some of the quotes so they’re ready to use, such as Charlotte Whitton’s “It's how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.” or “There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.” Tony Robbins.
Any other ideas?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Jewell on -
You are right Esther, I wonder if my posting is possibly more about what contribution you can make to the campaign, our 'means' so to speak, while you are taking here I think more at the 'ends' and how we go about delivering on the vision of the campaign.
This is most definitely the step forward we now need to take. We have considerable content on the site, and support from people who are interested in the campaign. This has started to improve stability of the group, but to become an effective team it is important to start looking at concrete matters of delivery.
I am interested to hear what people have to say. And also, what the best way is to put this together so that everyone can use their time and talents to start changing the conversations people are having and making a difference in real time. -
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Permalink Reply by Susan Jones on -
I was also wondering whether we could do a bit of challenging the tendency to use the adjective 'successful' quite so freely?
If more people admitted to failure - were allowed to admit to failure - folk like us in this forum wouldn't have to do so much advocating.... -
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Jewell on
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That's a very interesting idea - I wonder what we might call that campaign!
Yes, I agree - that is something we haven't looked at up to now. I think we should definitely give it some thought.
My immediate feeling (and it is just a feeling) is that maybe what we would be trying to say is that we need to consider how to make the most of success by acknowledging that it is rarely consummate. The success may be of only some part of the original intention or it may be less than it could have been, or it might have been of another nature that in some sense was 'better' and therefore came with some net opportunity cost.
Am I completely off-track here, or is that kind of what you are saying?
Susan Jones said:I was also wondering whether we could do a bit of challenging the tendency to use the adjective 'successful' quite so freely?
If more people admitted to failure - were allowed to admit to failure - folk like us in this forum wouldn't have to do so much advocating.... -
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Permalink Reply by Esther King on -
Yes it is an interesting idea, and my immediate feeling is to agree that the concentration and emphasis on success isn't helpful. It's fair to say that we all want to be successful in whatever we do but the taboo on failure makes success the only option we're prepared to countenance. And does that emphasis on success mean that we overuse the word (think keywords on CVs type stuff) to look good and bolster ourselves against failure.
Or am I off-track here?
Jonathan Jewell said:That's a very interesting idea - I wonder what we might call that campaign!
Yes, I agree - that is something we haven't looked at up to now. I think we should definitely give it some thought.
My immediate feeling (and it is just a feeling) is that maybe what we would be trying to say is that we need to consider how to make the most of success by acknowledging that it is rarely consummate. The success may be of only some part of the original intention or it may be less than it could have been, or it might have been of another nature that in some sense was 'better' and therefore came with some net opportunity cost.
Am I completely off-track here, or is that kind of what you are saying?
Susan Jones said:I was also wondering whether we could do a bit of challenging the tendency to use the adjective 'successful' quite so freely?
If more people admitted to failure - were allowed to admit to failure - folk like us in this forum wouldn't have to do so much advocating.... -
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Permalink Reply by Esther King on
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Hi Nicola, I love your example (and your medal). It really does illustrate embracing failure:
Your instructor saying that it's about learning about yourself
You saying that you often fail at taekwondo but you fail alongside others and the respect from everyone keeps you all going
Everyone saying not to be too hard on yourself and that prompting you to start mission relax
You saying that blogging about it helps
You saying you can learn from hearing about other people's experiences
Reading that gives me a glimpse of how liberating it will feel when this project has lifted the taboo on failure*
So, to try to generalise from this example to things we can do in our daily lives:
Ask what we/the other person have/has learnt about ourselves/themselves from the failure (as distinct from what we/they have learnt from the failure or the process that led to it).
Treat failure as something normal to talk about so that everyone can be encouraged by knowing they're not the only ones.
Treat failure as something normal to talk about so that others can learn from it.
Can anyone add to that?
* Susan, I was on the point of putting 'successfully lifted' and then thought of your comment.
Nicola Avery said:I can share a personal one, about 18 months ago (I'm 37 nearly 38) I started learning a martial art, taekwondo, because I had reached breaking point with lots of things in personal and professional life. Learning martial arts is a great way because unless you are as flexible as a young child, it is hard, lots of instructions to process and takes a lot to try and follow then improve. You often fail but you fail alongside so many others doing the same and the respect from both the instructors and others in the class, encourages you to keep trying - e.g when you've tried to do an impressive kick and often ended up on the floor in a mess, or tried to learn a pattern - series of movements and it just doesn't happen.
I took it further and do competition fights - I have fought younger opponents in two of them and lost all three. You feel horrible afterwards, but my instructor says that its not about winning or losing, what is important that you learn about yourself (which you do in a frightening way) and become a better martial artist.
Here's is my latest loser's medal from a fight about 2 weeks ago
My ego is recovering and so are various body parts too. Everyone always says not to be too hard on yourself and not to take it to seriously, so mission relax has begun for me :) Blogging about it helps - my blog is often my therapeutic tool. What's also nice about that is when someone comes along and explains about their experience and you can learn from theirs as well. -
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Permalink Reply by Jocelyn Cunningham on -
Hello,
New to both the RSA and this Ning but very engaged by this conversation. I have on my desk a quote from Samuel Beckett:
Fail once,
Fail twice,
Fail better.
which encapsulates things well for me and helps to keep me thinking of risky ways of doing things. -
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Permalink Reply by Esther King on
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Hi Jocelyn and welcome to the RSA and this Ning.
That's a great quote. It makes me smile when I read it and I've put it on my wall now.
I think it's top of the list of things to say to anyone who is worried about failure.
Thank you very much -
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