Changing the way I view failure (part 1)

When considering trying something new, I tend to get really in my head. 

I come by it honest though, because my mom does the same thing. 

I remember my mom telling me a story about when she was younger. She went to the driving range with some friends to hit golf balls. All her friends were having fun taking turns, but when it got to her turn, she didn’t go. She was so worried about looking stupid that she didn’t even let herself try it. 

Years later, when she was telling me the story, she said “I wish I’d just stepped up and hit the freaking ball.” 

This story pops into my head whenever I’m faced with a new experience. I’ve realized I’m often so afraid of failing that I don’t even let myself try new things, or I purposely do poorly so I’m not disappointed when I do fail. 

Failure is scary, and it hurts. But what if it didn’t need to be that way? What if I could think of failure as a catalyst to help me move forward instead of something to be avoided? 

Springboard to success 

This is not a new idea. Many people who are much more accomplished and wiser than me have shared the idea that failing is merely part of the path to success. 

• “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” —Thomas A. Edison 

• “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” —C.S. Lewis 

• “My best successes came on the heels of failures.” —Barbara Corcoran 

• “Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.” —Robert T. Kiyosaki 

Failure isn’t the problem; the meaning we assign it is. Just because we fail at something doesn’t mean we’re fundamentally flawed, it just means we have further to go and more to learn. 

This mindset makes me feel excited to try new things rather than fearful. I’ve lived in fear of failure long enough, so this year I want to change the way I view it. 

Changing how I view failure

My plan to accomplish this is to try one new thing every month and write about it here to keep me accountable. 

My new thing for January was learning how to play a video game that my husband likes. He’s been wanting to teach me how to play for a while, but I was so scared of being terrible at it that I kept telling him I was too tired or had other things to do (spoiler: I didn’t). 

The other day, we finally sat down together, and he taught me how to play. I understood about 2% of what he said at first, and I lost so many rounds. But after an hour of playing and slowly figuring out the strategy, I finished my second game in the top four players. I’m sure it was mostly luck, because I still don’t completely understand how to play, but it felt good. 

This was something so small. But now I know how to play a new game, and my husband and I have a new activity to do together—all because I allowed myself to endure a little bit of failure until things started to make sense. 

I’m hoping that now it’ll be easier to learn other games my husband wants me to learn, because it wasn’t as painful as I thought. 

February’s new thing: mahjong!