Embracing Failure

Whenever I start to feel like a failure, I know that’s my cue to try to become even *more* of a failure - to fail harder, more often, and more consistently.

Failure is a close friend and ally to success, ingenuity, creativity, and progress, and it’s a thing that reliably moves me forward, builds capacity and resiliency, and gets energy moving.

So now whenever the thought “I’m a failure” comes up, I try to follow it with, “I sure hope so.”

Because I sincerely hope I never stop collecting failures. I hope I will always be someone who is willing to fail and ready to leap into risk and uncertainty.

So if you’re feeling bummed out by a recent failure: congratulations! You were brave and tried a thing! And making that a habit reliably leads to good things.

To the Edge

For several years now I’ve wanted to take a dance class. This summer, I’m finally doing it.

I took ballet and tap around age 5, but after that, my extracurricular endeavors took a different turn - toward those that pretty much exclusively required athletic power and brute strength over artful grace and coordination. And 24 years later, that definitely shows.

I can’t quite decide how good or bad I am at dance now, but the instructor did pull me aside several times this week for extra instruction if that’s any indication.

There’s a lot of floundering and flailing that happens as I learn the steps, try to get the technique right, and attempt to coordinate all that with what my arms are supposed to be doing. (Although I will say I have some powerful jumps - definitely not the most graceful to be clear, but I do get some height and distance, so there’s that.)

Here’s what I’ve concluded four weeks in: feeling like an inept fool is an important human experience we should all be having more often.

In a small way, dance is taking me to an edge of myself, and there’s something essential about that.

It’s making my brain and body work together in different ways. It’s taking me into fun and humor through detours of frustration, failure, and embarrassment. It’s expanding my sense of what’s possible inside of and through my body.

Also: there’s something magical about those series of hard-won baby triumphs that come (slowly and painfully) when we learn a new skill we’re uncomfortably bad at when we start.

So let’s not forget to keep learning and following what fascinates us - pushing our edges, finding delight in our capacity for growth, embarrassing ourselves, and having fun doing it.

All of this awesomeness is part of what we got when we came into this world as human creatures, so even (and especially) when there’s hard stuff swirling around us, brutal and relentless, let’s make good use of this goodness and allow it to fuel our journeys ahead.