Hey y’all, it’s been a while! I’ve been taking a hiatus for a variety of reasons, which I’ll probably dive into in another post. But this topic has been weighing on my mind the past few days, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts. So pull up a chair and let’s talk failure.
I am a failure
That statement sounds extreme, but it’ll make sense as we continue. But this week really was eye-opening for me, and frankly, it shook me to my core as a person. TL;DR, I had a conversation with a friend where I got mad and went off. But in reality, the reason for my anger was pretty fucking stupid and throughout that whole conversation, I failed her.
I failed to actively listen without judgment or offering opinions, I failed to not jump to conclusions, I failed to ask questions, I failed to be caring and empathetic. To top it all off, I was like COMPLETELY wrong about some things. Effectively, I failed her as a friend. But I also failed myself as a person.
I basically had a huge moment of cognitive dissonance and almost had a breakdown in the shower. In my eyes, I had gone against all of the things that I try to uphold. And it really bothered me. I wondered how many other people I had treated like this, if there was something wrong with me, and I questioned my worth as a person. In my eyes, I was a failure to my core.
But the thing is, we all are failures. And it wasn’t until I talked to my girlfriend that I remembered that failure doesn’t have to define me as a person. It’s really easy to forget sometimes that nobody is perfect and that perfection is impossible. We’re all going to fuck up eventually. Except, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. What really matters is how we learn from and apply the lessons from our failures. Because at the end of the day, failure is just a building block to success.
Awareness is the first step
Pretty self-explanatory. Failure can’t be learned from and utilized if we don’t even know that we messed up. In most cases, it’s pretty apparent when we’ve erred. But sometimes it’s a lot more subtle than we might think. This is why trying to think from other people’s perspectives is important. Perception is everything, and we default to our own frame of reference when observing and pondering events.
Empathy is one of things that pervades interactions with other people. It’s the only thing that can give a glimpse into understanding another person. In my case, I failed at being empathetic. But it’s still necessary to bring awareness about how we messed up in the first place, so we can take the next step.
Learn from the mistake
Sometimes lessons just pop out at you. But sometimes they’re incredibly subtle and require digging. This is where we have to look at the whole experience and pick it apart with critical thinking.
I think one of the best ways to approach this is to use emotion as a guide. In my eyes, emotions are messages from our subconscious in response to external stimuli. So when we consider the emotion, we have to be curious and ask questions. Asking those hard questions is the only real way to get to the root of the problem. In my case, the cause of my failure was an issue with ego: forgetting empathy (lack of consideration for my friend), not listening (assuming), and not asking questions (thinking I had the answer). After we sus that out, we can move to the final step.
We have to apply what we’ve learned
The other two steps don’t matter if we don’t do this one. Knowledge without practical application is meaningless. So now we have to take what we’ve learned from our mistake and put it into action.
Easier said than done obviously. It takes time and consistent effort to enact meaningful change. It takes making a serious commitment to catching ourselves in the moment and acting differently. We have to apply what we’ve learned to the space between stimulus and response.
We might not get it the first time. Or the second. Or the third. We might fail a bunch of times. But each time, we’ll improve until we get it right. Because at the end of the day, failure is part of success and not its antithesis. We might mess up again, but that’s ok. Nobody is perfect and perfection is outside our reach. But that’s what makes life so beautiful.
I want to thank you for talking humans with me today. How do you deal with failure? Let me know in the comments below. Please, share this with someone you think will get something out of it. And don’t forget to talk humans with someone this week. Until next time, peace!