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My (Spectacular) Musem of Failures
What does yours’ look like?
Failure has a whole new meaning in my dictionary today.
As a high performer in school, grades defined how I felt about myself. Growing up, it was GPAs, internships, income, and fame that all got tied to my self-worth. Even today I find it hard to not attach my work to my worth.
We’ve rarely been encouraged to fail in school. Or to try a bunch of things outside our 9–5s that might spark joy or to pick up a new hobby in our 30s.
“It’s too late to become ____ now.” “We should've done ____ when we could.”
This labeling and constrained thinking keeps us from trying new things, getting out of our comfort zones, and breaking barriers until it's too late.
Every step is calculative, measured to the T, and if it steers away from the planned outcome it is like a punch in the gut — a true attack on our ego.
So we’d rather not try than try and maybe fail (or succeed) at something.
In reality, failure is never about us. We just make it about us, always.
It says a lot more about our attitude than about our aptitude.
I wish I realized sooner that failure wasn’t so bad. It was nothing but an ego battle. It was the fear of…
