One of the biggest issues one must face when trying to be unique, original, creative, and or innovative is overcoming the fear of failure. I did a blog entry a few months ago about fear of failure, and it was quite interesting to see how often people googled that phrase.
Anyway, since this blog is about overcoming the fear of "looking stupid," and thereby maximizing your unique creative ability and originality, and since "failure" is so closely allied with the standard concept of "stupidity," it is of course a topic of great interest. So while I addressed this in my book "Principles of Applied Stupidity," I’ve actually been thinking about failure to an even more detailed degree, and here is what my little brain has come up with:
There are actually many different types of failure, but I will stick to the two main ones here. The first kind of failure, well, I will illustrate with the following failure assessment statement:
"You failed to turn off the ball game and attend my sister-in-law’s poetry reading."
This is an interesting statement. In the speaker’s eyes, you failed. From your own logical perspective, you succeeded. But the negative "failure" feeling still exists, solely in the disapproval by another person of your choice of actions. So your"failure," (and your fear of it), is not about success or failure at all; it is fear of your disconnection from another person, not failure in the action itself. You "failed" to meet outside expectations, and yes, that may have undesirable consequences.
Calling an action a "failure" is an attempt to shift focus from interpersonal dynamics, reassign blame, and make it sound objective and logical, and therefore unassailable. A good example of this kind of subtle manipulation would be my saying to you, "you have failed to buy a copy of my book." It is a method of manipulating you by trying to make you do something you don’t want to do, by making it (buying the book) the only alternative to something even less appealing (being called a shameful failure). I think 98% of institutionalized education uses this method of motivation.
Another failure statement I just love:
"You failed to learn the material I was hired and paid to teach you."
Just my own pet peeve here, but it always kind of bothers me when a teacher accepts failure in a student. The question always becomes, whose fault is it? I realize some kids are destined to fail in school, but I still think a teacher has to take some of that responsibility, and not rest blame entirely on the student. Of course, to be fair, most teachers work within a system that requires ranking of students, and so in that system failure must exist at one end in order to have a success at the other. A handful of F students in the class shows the teacher succeeded in making the class difficult enough.
So again, failure is often just failure to meet an arbitrary standard . . . but little kids don't know this. They just know they are not getting the accepting/ loving adulation they need, and when this happens they tend to blame themselves; and in a child's mind, a single failed quiz can explode into total self condemnation. To be blamed for something we were not responsible for combines injustice with illogic, and this can be emotionally overwhelming to a child. So of course, it makes sense that as adults we would fear ever reliving such a vexing experience. We get into a pain avoidance pattern that is very limiting.
So to sum up, the real power of the word "failure" comes from the condemnation of yourself, usually from another person, for not having met their arbitrary standards and expectations. It’s hard to defend against it logically, as they believe they are being logical when in fact there is no objective standard involved. Unfortunately, in response to repeated shaming experiences, many people internalize this, and start blaming themselves for not meeting outside standards. They often shut down and limit themselves to doing things that can never be criticized by anyone. They achieve a sense of psychic safety through total conformity with commonly held standards for their appearance and behavior.
But for all of the bad definitions and uses of "failure," in most cases, real failure is actually good.
Failure is a normal by-product of living and growing and learning. When I do a Sodoku puzzle, I try this number here and that number there, and I fail in about a 4 to 1 ratio in each box I try to solve. But oddly enough, even though this process is rife with ongoing failures, I enjoy doing it, as do millions of people worldwide.
Human beings are born problem solvers. We do puzzles by the truckload. To not have a problem or puzzle to solve is actually painful to our minds; we call it boredom. Problem solving is in our genes, and problem solving involves distilling single successes out of numerous "failures." The essence of drama is waiting to see how the characters will solve their problem.
Of course, when we are doing a much larger puzzle of seeking our true heart’s desire, "failures" should not be called shameful, as trial and error and the occasional setback is essential to doing new things that are difficult and/or have no instruction manual. But unfortunately, so much shame is associated with "failing" by the above failure definitions, that it bleeds over in some people’s lives and it shuts down their puzzle solving ability. They can’t solve any real puzzles. They can’t risk anything outside the safe, known, tried and true. This is tragic for everyone, and yet it is often the result of the negative associations we have with the word "failure."
If you have "failed" to achieve your true heart’s desire as of today, well, there is no shame in that failure at all. The shame would only be in not ever failing, because the only way you can not fail is to not try– and giving up on your own true desire, and giving up on becoming and realizing the potential that is your unique self– that is the only failure in life.
So in a true semantic corkscrew of the mind, the only way to avoid shameful failure is to continually fail over and over again.
Ain’t life strange.
Failure is good. I try to fail as much as I can.
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News: I will be at Waltham Library May 18th, also I will be speaking at the Weston (MA) Rotary this Thursday night. I am also doing a book fair up in Haverhill MA at the end of May, but no, I won’t be speaking. Also I am speaking in Holden MA May 4th.
I am also happy to have yet another 5 star review of Real Men Don’t Rehearse on it Amazon page. Note, as grateful as I am to Amazon for all the business they send my way, fyi I make more money if you buy my books thru my website!! www.justinlocke.com
Also don’t forget, bass couture t shirts make a great musical mother’s day gift!
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