Okay that’s not entirely true, but there is one thing we cannot afford to fear: failure. It’s true, there are few things more paralyzing to the creative process, to the utilization of our whatever gifts, that fear of failure. Fear of failure will keep you frozen and stuck. It will keep you from accomplishing your goals and putting yourself and your work out there for the world to see.
I was once driving down the highway and I got behind a guy who had one of those custom frames around his license plate. The smaller copy at the top of the frame was illegible, but the bottom text could be read from quite a distance. It said Failure is not an option. My heart automatically went out to the guy and I began to feel very sorry for him. I thought of all the undue pressure he must put himself under. Poor guy. Eventually the light in front of us changed to red and I was able to catch up enough to read the top line of text on the frame, which gave me an entirely different view of the man’s predicament. You see, it said “Bomb Disposal Technician.” In that case, he was right, failure is not an option. He gets one shot to get it right each and every time he steps up to do his work. The same applies to surgeons and a few other fields.
So unless you are a bomb disposal technician or some other hazardous profession, failure is also not an option. It’s a necessity. The truth of the matter is using our gifts and solving problems, requires experimentation, requires trying new things, and with trying new things comes failure. Bottom line: YOU WILL FAIL. No exceptions, so you might as well not fear it. Instead, we need to learn from our failures, and learn to fail forward. Fearing something that is inevitable, is pointless. Instead the question is what we can learn from this failure? How can we move forward to success from here?
Don’t be afraid of failure, learn from it and keep going. Success belongs to those who do the work and persevere.
Assignment: Think about a past failure. What did you learn from it? What are your current struggles? How has fear held you back? Now look for ways to overcome your fears and fight you way back from them.
AMOKArts 