The Fear of Failure
The end of the year and end of the decade is nigh. As if the world wasn’t already buzzing with end of year success stories and re-caps of the past ten years, we also have to sift through social media timelines reading the life defining chronicles of our friends from the past ten years. I assure you that I’m neither bitter nor cynical, but merely a realist. I love nothing more than a success story, but what I want to read more of are the stories of failed dreams and the life lessons that came with it. We chase success stories like oxygen because everybody wants to know how to become the next millionaire; or how to build a start-up company from scratch; how to navigate the property market; or secure the perfect graduate job or life partner. I’ve grown to appreciate the failure stories just as much as the triumphant ones because they‘re an insiders guide on what-not-to-do. A medley of motivational stories written to the beat of, If I can do it — you can do it too.
The innate desire to succeed in life is not always about personal achievement but more about the fear of failure. Parental, self and even societal pressures to succeed often leave little room to fail, learn and grow. And failure comes in many forms — Failure to step out of our comfort zones. Failure to execute a plan. Failure to fulfil goals and commitments. It happens, procrastination that is. It happens to most of us, clouding our vision and derailing the enthused persons we once were.
More than a year ago I had vowed to write more often and publish my writing to this blog, alongside other big writing tasks. For me, writing had always been an emotional and mental outlet. It was my artistic channel, and yet I had somehow managed to suck the fun out of it, only seeing it as an arduous task and why publish anyways, who would read it. It wasn’t until I found myself chin deep in unpublished blog posts, and swimming in self pity that I heard the shouts of a friend telling me to Get out of your own way. Thank you friend. That abrupt but effective sentence that you sent in our What’sApp chat became the catalyst for me to pick up a pen again. It was me who was failing to click ‘publish’ on these posts and staring at my folder of unfinished drafts. It wasn’t the hypothetical readers who were blocking my progress, it was me. If I didn’t pick up the pen to write, I had already failed.
Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right — Henry Ford
A couple of years ago I wrote Lessons learnt in Adulthood, a piece written in reflection of my twenties, debunking the myths and societal pressures that can unconsciously become deterrents to growth. I had always heard this saying about how our twenties were meant to be the years that we made mistakes, failed and learnt to move forward. Back then, when I was in the thick of it, I had no idea that I would one day master the non-chalant “We Move-It’s Above Me Now” attitude that becomes the mantra of our thirties.
In 2010 I was fresh out of University, optimistic and excited about what post-graduate life would have in store. Naturally I did what most hopeful young adults do, I enrolled for a post-graduate course… wait for it, in Law. Saying it out loud now, I realise that it’s almost as if I wanted to die a slow death. Studying post-graduate Law (the equivalent of a three year degree condensed into one) was by far one of the hardest things that I’ve had to conquer in life. Yes, the workload was intense and my ability to cram finite details into my head increased tenfold, but that wasn’t the hardest part. The hardest part was failing the exams the first time, and then the second time, and somehow convincing myself that I could do this. It’s easy for education and other life achievements to take centre place and become the things that define a person. When I was face to face with resitting those papers, I had to ask myself who I would be without that qualification and career. (Have you ever had to take a step back and ask yourself that? It’s a terrifying question to ask when you don’t know the answer). Eventually I began the arduous task of telling friends that I wouldn’t be graduating that summer — and then something beautiful happened. My friends began to share their stories of failed aspirations and curtailed dreams. It was surreal yet so comforting to know that there was still hope after failure.
In failure we perceive the initial shock to the system as the hardest pill to swallow, when in fact the true test is how we deal with the aftermath. When met with failure, the question we should ask ourselves is whether the failure will lead to an undoing, or re-strategising? No one is a stranger to failure; here are some examples of well know failures pre-success.
- Sir James Dyson, the vacuum cleaner entrepreneur worked on over 5,000 prototypes before finding one that he was proud to call a Dyson. Even after completing the prototype the road to success wasn’t easy, because the British marketplace rejected the idea of this new vacuum cleaner. The model was later taken to Japan where it finally received the accolades it deserved.
- Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay cosmetics, resigned after 25 years of working in sales as she was often overlooked for promotions, even by the men that she trained. She later wrote a business plan that would propel her to start Mary Kay cosmetics: For every failure there’s an alternative course of action. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.
- Netflix almost caused their own demise when they launched a sister startup company that required subscribers to create separate accounts for streaming and DVD dispatch. Millions of subscribers left the streaming service, until the Netflix original series, House of Cards was released in 2013 driving up stock shares and subscribers.
Failure doesn’t have to be the end of a story, it can bring a change of direction and push you out of the place of comfortability and release fresh potential. To quote Bill Gates, Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. Celebrate every success, big and small but also take time to ask yourself what lessons can be learnt from the set backs. Failure will destroy you if you allow it too, but it can also propel you into a place of growth that you wouldn’t reach any other way.
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This post is dedicated to my motivational gang, Kwame, Jessa, Abigail and JJ. Thank you for being patient with me when I was rolling in the pool of self pity and procrastinating to the highest degree. And for also telling to me to just get up and write. It took a while, but I got there. The best is yet to come.
Happy New Year!
WrappednCulture
