#48 - Failing Is...

I failed a sign language exam when I was a teenager. I told someone I fancied them and they said they didn't feel the same. I applied to be Head Girl at my school and didn't get it. I wrote a novel in my early twenties and had the manuscript rejected by a dozen publishers. I managed to get a meeting with a big public school in Cambridge and didn't get any coaching work out of it. I'm passionate about natural vision improvement yet still wear glasses some of the time.

These are the facts. I failed at these things. But what does that mean? There's the definition of failing - not meeting a particular result or expectations - and then there's the interpretation we give it. This is one of the most significant learnings from my coach training: our experience of a situation depends on the perspective we take, and the great news is that we get to choose our perspective. It's like we go to the theatre and all the seats are empty so we can move around until we find the seat which offers us the best, most enjoyable view.

Many of us have a view which completes the sentence like this: "Failing is... evidence I'm no good" or "Failing is... the end of the road". If we take this view, we play small, stop trying, don't take risks in case we fail. And then of course we fail anyway and beat ourselves up, vowing to avoid that route next time. Life becomes limited, there are less opportunities available to us. We've become so used to sitting in this particular seat that we believe it's The Seat, the one and only, just the way it is, when really it's just one point of view - and one that isn't particularly helpful.

In my workshop, Fail Is Not A Four Letter Word, the central activity involves generating other perspectives on failing and 'trying them on'. We come up with "Failing is... a sign I'm human", "Failing is... feedback". We're moving around that metaphorical theatre, searching for a perspective which feels true for us and is empowering enough to fuel us in to action. The key word here is: choose. We get to determine what failing means to us so that it exists as a regular part of the human experience, rather than a block to us pursuing the life we want.

Do Things Differently
Make a list of eight times you've failed. Choose the one with the greatest sting and note your current perspective on failing ("Failing is...") Now, 'try on' some other perspectives, such as the ones mentioned above. Include the two in the photo which were generated by participants at my workshop. How empowering is each? What feels different and what would you do differently if you saw failing in this way? Now, consciously choose that perspective this week. Notice how you approach a potential fail situation differently and what happens a result.

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The 'Fail Is Not A Four Letter Word' workshop is running again on Sat 18th October in Cambridge (UK). For more details and to book your place, click here.

#40 - It's In The Air

When JK Rowling addressed Harvard graduates recently, her theme was the benefit of failure. The Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts has recently launched a Glory Of Failure project. And I have been delving deeper and deeper into people's failure experiences through my most recent project - Fail Is Not A Four Letter Word. Traditionally, organisations, celebrities and professionals would be telling us all how to succeed and so this current perspective - on failing being valuable - feels new, fresh, like a change in the tide. Failing, it seems, is in the air.

I'm getting curious about the synchronicity of ideas. Just this morning, a client was speaking passionately about her vision for a project and reflected: "The timing is spot on for this" because her objectives overlap beautifully with key funder objectives. A year ago, there might not have been the interest, a year on, her dream might have seemed like yesterday's news. What makes something a 'hot topic'? Do ideas spread like viruses, caught and spread between one person and another? Or does an energy emerge and create a strong undercurrent, pulling us in certain directions?

We can always find evidence that the world doesn't need our ideas and gifts. Often, when we start telling others our dreams, they will shower us with that kind of evidence ("but what about the credit crunch!?"). Instead, how about we start noticing trends in the world which we get excited about? - buzzwords like 'community cohesion', 'innovation', or 'peer support'. Maybe we can spot practical action like more recycling facilities popping up, shops charging for plastic bags, allotments becoming more popular.

Let's imagine that the world were setting the stage - getting all the players into position, lighting, sound and...cue: YOU! What's it time for you to do?

Action:
Keep a list of the trends you notice this week which inspire you. By each, make a note of one thing you're already doing which links with that trend, and then one thing which could contribute to furthering this trend.

Inquiry:
What's hot? And where do I fit in?

Glory Of Failure - read the signature article for this here: http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/features/the-joy-of-failure

For more about my Fail Is Not A Four Letter Word workshops, visit the Workshops section of my website - www.youinspireme.co.uk. Also, drop me an email if you'd like to put yourself forward to be interviewed on this subject.