It’s not the critic who counts quote picture from Instagram - @lucyrose.ltd
I’m no stranger to feelings of doubt and a lack of confidence, especially in the context of failing. We are all told from a very early age that failure is synonymous with negativity and bad feelings – you did something wrong and you should be punished for it. This could not be further from the truth.
A recent study from Northwestern University (USA) stated that failure is actually essential to success; they are two peas in the same pod. So why are we all so scared of it?
Failure and how to overcome it:
If we thought about it long enough, the reason we are all fearful of failure is the negative perception of yourself through the eyes of someone else. Your parents, your friends, your colleagues. They will deem you a failure, and so therefore you are. Because of this future perception that you’ve created through the eyes of someone else (yes, that’s how deluded it is – you have no idea if they will actually deem you a failure, you just believe they will) you don’t even try.
So not only do we have a made-up scenario in which people think you are a failure, but we are also assuming we will fail. Two outcomes which may not even happen are preventing you from trying to achieve something. One of these things is partly in your control (the outcome of the task) and the other one is not in your control at all (how people see you). The way to overcome this fear is to lean into the teachings of failure.
Failure the Teacher:
Everyone is familiar with the Thomas Edison Quote; “I did not fail 10,000 times, I simply found 10,000 ways that did not work” and this is the essence of failure. It’s there to teach you how not to do something, so that next time you have greater confidence, understanding and chance of success. That is how innovation works, that is how nature works and that is how we should work.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt which sums up where I am in the process of coping with failure.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
So get out there and start failing. You’ll be the biggest winner in the end.