Start loving your failures
Our culture has taught us to hide our mistakes and blame the other person for a mistake you’ve made. Why? This is a stupid social rule.
At my last job, I was always told I’d be taking the blame for someone else’s mistake. I asked why, and they said, “I don’t wanna get in trouble.” It didn’t make sense. Why would you get in trouble for a mistake, or a failure?
As the years went on, it became apparent that there were more people who felt that way. It’s silly! I never did this, I always owned up to my mistakes, including when I locked everyone out of the iPad for 1 minute.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas Edison.
This is one of the many quotes I’ve written on my wall. Literally, in pencil, like a child, I have written on my wall to keep my head high. The truth is, all this waiting for success doesn’t work as most people think. My mom has been trying to get me to see that, and I haven’t fully accepted it until recently. That said, there’s still a lot of anxiety to try and get over, and that part will never be easy.
Learn from it
No matter what your failure is today, learn from it. What could you have done to make it work? What will you do differently next time? If you can’t learn from your mistakes you will go on to do it again, and again, and again.
Celebrate the small steps
How do you love your failures?
Celebrate every small step taken. Seriously. It’s so easy. Just today I saw my email inbox “Mturk payment success!” I was only transferring over $5, but I had so many failures transferring the money that I celebrated this success. Then I saw in my inbox that I got paid $0.14 for writing. It’s small, but it’s a success in my mind. On Friday I saw my test grade 19/25 after failing the last two.
Every small step forward means you’re learning. How do we learn? By our failures.
Sometimes it doesn’t work, but sometimes it does
Sometimes, life doesn’t allow us to open doors. That doesn’t mean you can’t open them later and try again. You can take every right step and it still won’t work, and you have to be okay with that and recognize that it’ll be okay.
I have made so many mistakes in a lot of things. I love each and every mistake. This is the only reason that I have succeeded in doing so many things. Don’t hide your mistakes either, make them open and tell the world about it.
Later you’ll look back and laugh, and wonder how you could’ve made silly mistakes like that. Right now, however, in whatever you do, you’re still learning. That’s okay, learning is the longest process and has the most satisfying rewards.
