I absolutely hate failure. It’s one of my least favorite things about life. But failure is absolutely necessary for growth. It’s only in pain and discomfort that we learn and develop into better artists and better people.
So while I don’t intentionally fail, I do make room for myself to fail. I’m constantly trying new projects and risks here and there that occasionally fail, and occasionally work. I don’t tell you about most of my failures because those aren’t as exciting to me – and sometime they’re a bit embarrassing. But I do fail – often.
So how do you make room for yourself (or others) to fail? The key is to have a long-term paradigm. For instance, when I used to work at a church, each Sunday felt like the most important day of my life. Each Sunday had to execute flawlessly, otherwise I felt like a complete failure. That meant high pressure on my volunteers and high pressure on me. It also meant my taking control of some things that I could have trained others to do.
I began to learn that each Sunday might not be my last. It might not even be the most important. What if I allowed a volunteer to fail (not miserably) this Sunday to better train him for future Sundays? One Sunday might be a bit below par, but every other Sunday would be better than it could have been without that volunteer’s new skill set and maturity.
That’s what it means to have a long-term paradigm on failure. It’s finding areas where a little bit of failure is ok and venturing out. It’s choosing, in the short term, for things to be a bit less than ideal for better results in the long term.
Make room for yourself to fail today.
