What Can We Do When We Feel Failure Sitting Heavily Upon Us?

We all fail. All of us. There is no way not to do it.

It’s part of being human, part of being creative, part of learning.

We know, intellectually, that failing goes hand in hand with success, arguably not as its polar opposite, but as part of the same process.

And, yet, it can still hurt when we fail at something. Or perceive that we have. On one of the recent occasions this happened to me, my inner critic took the opportunity to come and beat me up big time.

To put it in context, this failure was around a retreat day I was running. It was my first event in the location I’m newly living in, and my first event since coming back from an extended period of holiday. And it hit me big time. My thoughts spiralled for a while, including the statements of supposed fact that ‘I’m a failure’ and that ‘this is never going to work’.

We each of us have different levels of resilience in experiences of failure, dependent on so many factors, including our childhood experiences, our learned behaviours. More short term, our energy levels, hormones, even how hungry or thirsty we are at a particular point in time can impact on how we respond.

I used to have very low resilience to failing. My inner critic was almost always in the driving seat. I operated on a basis that everything I created must be planned and executed to perfection (as though that’s a thing) and that it should be done as a solo project, or I was a failure.

The process of unlearning unhelpful behaviours and thought patterns and the learning of more helpful ones has been a conscious one, and one very much still in progress.

She’s still there, my inner critic, and clearly jumped behind the wheel for a while last week, before being kindly and firmly moved back to the passenger seat, present but not in charge.

What can we do when we feel the weight of failure heavily upon us?

Practice Self-compassion

Kristine Neff teaches that despite it being culturally-embedded that criticism is supposedly the best tool for motivation and learning, self-compassion is in fact proven to be far more effective. Take a moment to pause, to place your hand on your belly, and to remind yourself that you’re proud that you tried, that everybody fails and that you are whole. Your value as a person is NOT tied to this failure (or any other success for that matter).

Ask: did it fail, or did it turn out differently to your plan?

Focussing on a very specific goal can at times be an important part of success. When we lose our wider perspective, however, or grip too tightly to a particular outcome, we can reduce our capacity for flexibility or adaptability. Investigate whether you’ve become so tied to one particular outcome, naming it a failure when it didn’t happen in that way, that you’ve not noticed alternative outcomes, some of which may be exciting or even give you more than you hoped for!

Failure is part of every creative process. Time and time and time again. And the more we do it, the more resilient we become to it being an integral part of the process. One of my teachers, Rachel Blackman, has taught me a great deal about seeing trial and error as part of the creative process.

Distinguish between failing and being a failure.

You cannot be a failure. It is not a characteristic. You can fail at something, but not be a failure. This is a really important distinction. Notice the language you’re using with yourself. Can you shift it from ‘I’m a failure’ to ‘I’ve failed at this one thing’.

Reach out to your support network

Human life is a team sport. It’s great to share our successes — and at times, even more important to share our failures. When I noticed my inner critic playing out loudly, I stepped into the business mentorship group that I’ve recently joined. It felt very vulnerable — my ego didn’t enjoy sharing with this new group of people that I’d failed — but I was met with the compassion, cheer-leading and helpful perspective-shifting questions that I needed.

Move and nourish

It can be easy to forget the basics when we’re feeling overwhelmed by a sense of failure. But our capacity for resilience is strengthened by being well-nourished. Eat well, drink enough water, move your body. Particularly moving your body in a way that helps you to ‘shake off’ some of the tightness you may well be feeling — this might be dancing to loud music, heading out for a run, walking in nature, or, quite literally, having a shake.

Decide when to let go

When we perceive that we’re failing at something, or something is failing, it might be helpful to ask, is this the time to let this be or is this the time to pivot in the way I’m working with it and to continue to work to make it happen? Each event, project, scenario is different. Distinguishing between the two and fully honour the decision — checking it on it a number of times if necessary — can help.

When you’re ready, investigate what you can learn from it

For those of us with a pattern of shame in ‘failing’, it can be easy to want to move away from it quickly, to step into something else. And yet, the juice is in the detail of why it failed. It’s a sometimes-annoying fact that we learn by failing. And that we can only fail if we’ve tried something. The newer a skill is to us, the more likely we are to fail.

Can we explore this with compassion and lightness? I wonder what I might do differently next time? I wonder who I could speak to in order to learn more about this? I wonder what I can laugh about from this?

Intentionally step into spaces where we’re encouraged to share our imperfect creations without judgement

Doing a three-month comedy improv. course was one of the best things I could have done to help me flex my ‘comfort with failure’ muscles. In this, not only was it encouraged but celebrated. Our teacher. Liz Peters, taught us to ‘fail gloriously’! For me, it was life-changing. And, what I’ve noticed from this recent experience is that I haven’t been doing enough recently to strengthen this muscle. Consequently, I’ve just sought out a comedy improv. course in my area.

Celebrate the fact that you tried — really!

Celebrating ourselves for trying might feel uncomfortable at the time, but building this practice of self-support is key to becoming increasingly willing to open ourselves up to failure and therefore creativity, new experiences and success — whatever that looks like for you. My teacher Rachel Blackman

I’d love to hear if this resonated with you, or your thoughts on the topic.