Sometimes we have to have enough confidence (or courage) and audacity that we are willing to fail. Sometimes we don’t pursue our dreams, which I believe is tragic. The worst thing that can happen is you fail (and I use the term ‘fail’ loosely) and that ain’t all that bad, in fact, failure is often a great thing.
12 Reasons Why Failure Isn’t All That Bad:
- You learn way more from failure than you ever do from success.
- You strengthen your resilience. You become wiser and stronger provided you don’t create a disempowering narrative around your failures (don’t do that). Mastery happens when you fail. Failure shows you what works, what doesn’t etc. It’s full of wisdom and incredible teachings.
- Success is impossible without some failure. As I said above, you learn what works, by experiencing what does not. Failure is the minimum entry fee to your greatest success and you will have to pay it. No tax-free loopholes to success. Thank fuck.
- If you’ve never failed at anything, you’ve most probably never done anything deeply fulfilling. #SorryNotSorry
- Every super-successful person has failed a lot and that learning process is why in the end they achieved their goals and dreams. They failed enough times first to figure out what they were doing.
- The greatest successes are only that because you failed along the way. You know how the other way feels.
- Things don’t always go to plan (that’s life) and if you can make peace with that, and learn to fail well and forward, you’ll save yourself a lot of heartache and have a lot more resilience.
- Nobody really cares if you fail (okay some people do and will comment. That’s hard, I’m not gonna lie. I’ll come back to that). We tend to feel silly and ashamed when things don’t work out and we ‘fail’ at something, but everyone experiences that. Truthfully nobody cares all that much and the ones that do care, you don’t want their life so don’t let what they’ll think stop you from being willing to fail AKA achieve what you desire. Failure is part of that process and honestly, as I’ve said, most people don’t care. They aren’t focusing on you or even noticing your ‘failures.’ Not in a mean way, just because everyone has their own stuff and insecurities to worry about. In the nicest way, I repeat, they don’t care because they have their own crap they are wrapped up in. The minority that do notice your failings and judge it are the ones that have nothing better to do. They are too afraid to fail themselves. Send them love and let them watch you fail. See it as an opportunity to practice not giving a shit what other people think. Put on a good show for them if it helps. When you aren’t afraid to fail publicly you are unstoppable. Don’t let what they think stop you living a life aligned for you. Fail with pride. Fail publicly. Fail splendidly. And as Rachel Hollis would say “Then let them watch you rise back up like a phoenix from the ashes.”
- You’re supposed to fail sometimes so you can be steered onto the right track. It’s your aligned evolution. You are being redirected. You are welcome, babes. AND YOU MIGHT NOT SEE IT YET. My first business wasn’t a success and thank fuck for that or I wouldn’t be doing this. This didn’t come for years and years later AND yet, even know it’s an entirely different business (I used to run a fitness business) I learned invaluable skills that 14 years later as I’m updating this post in 2024 are still serving me (this post was originally created in 2016 and this post your reading was one of my very first blog posts. I wrote it when I had no clue what I was doing and this year tweaked it a little and updated it. It was originally written a whole 6 years later after that business ended in 2010). To this day what I learnt from running that business and failing has massively served me and been invaluable. I couldn’t see that at the time though. I was in grief over my first business closing. So I guess I wanna say, trust the process. This business I do now, is way more suited for me (being a fitness instructor was not a healthy role for me personally due to my inner demons) etc, but this would not exist had I never started that business. That first business gave me skills, confidence and a launchpad to years later start this blog that developed into a podcast, online courses, women’s events, a book (that’s being released this year), and me offering mentorship for women. I get to share about my journey of overcoming my past (my inner demons – many of which were revealed from running my first business), and getting diagnosed with complex PTSD and thus going on a trauma healing journey. I now raise awareness of things that deeply matter to me. This work is deeply fulfilling and meaningful to me, but I started learning many skills including writing from that business as I used to write fitness blogs for that business and I didn’t know what I was doing but I learnt.
Did I love the other business? Yes, that’s why it was so painful when it ended, but it wasn’t healthy for me. It didn’t have the scope and flexibility this business has. This business I LOVE EVEN MORE. This was what I was meant to do, but then I didn’t know that. I had simply been following my ideas, desires, etc at the time and was brave enough to give it a shot. Whilst the business closed/’failed’ (I chose to close it for various reasons but I won’t get into all the reasons in this post). I still managed to create a business people loved and raved about. And, even if that hadn’t been the case – even if it had been a complete utter flop and nobody loved it, I’d have still learned a shit ton that would have deeply served me going forward. Probably even more so because the parts that were failures AKA profit margins etc taught me A LOT. THE MOST. And, honestly, I’m deeply grateful for all the parts in the business that were failures as they pushed me to ultimately decide to close the business. Had that not been the case then I might never have decided to close the business. I might have instead tried to save it (and sometimes that’s the thing to do – make things better than they ever were, but this wasn’t one of those times, and deep down I knew it. I knew it was time to say Goodbye to that business). Again, I might be still doing that business and not this one had a lot of the business not been failing. There would be no women’s circles or Alchemy Academy 🙁 The universe was pivoting me 🙂 I’m glad those business failings happened. They ultimately pushed me over the edge into making a decision to close it and I’m so glad I did that. Even though it was really hard and I cried A LOT. I was honestly gutted. I adored that business and the people, but I knew it wasn’t right. It was one of the best failures I could have ever had, but I didn’t know that in 2010 when I closed that business. Hindsight, eh?
Sometimes our biggest ‘failures’ are blessings in disguises redirecting us elsewhere.
- It’s an opportunity to show others how to pick yourself up after you fall. If you have children they need to see this because sometimes things won’t go their way. Your kids (and everyone you love) will ‘fail’ countless times throughout their life. Show them how to do it well. Be a fucking role model and show them how to get back up when it happens. The sooner you make peace with the fact, that it will happen, you will sometimes ‘fail’ (that’s not a limiting belief, or perhaps it is BUT there are some things to be realistic about or the irony is you’ll feel like failure), the better. Don’t fear failure, get comfortable with it. Embrace it. Don’t let fear be a dirty word we have to reframe and not acknowledge. There is power and beautiful accountability in owning our ‘failures’. If we believe or try to convince ourselves or others there is no such thing as failure (and whilst I do agree somewhat and see it all as lessons learnt and use the term failure loosely myself) if we do that all the time it’s problematic. If we always have to see another positive perspective (which I’m not against – in fact I’m here for that) BUT if we go straight to that then it can often become another form of emotional suppression, denial, toxic positivity. It can also prevent us learning and owning our mistakes etc. If we make ‘failing’ something bad that we must pretend DID NOT HAPPEN because it’s uncomfortable. Thus we constantly have to reframe our ‘failures’ (coz we can’t fucking feel them), thus we actually just villainise failing (even know it’s a universal unavoidable experience) and thus we create shame for ourselves and others when we feel like we have failed and yet sometimes we will feel that way. This is why we don’t want people to know when we have ‘failed.’ Imagine if instead, we lived in a world where we looked up to and admired people who failed. Then ‘failing’ would not be so fear-inducing and we’d all live way more fulfilled lives as we wouldn’t fear things not working out – we’d just all see it as simply part of the process. No shame. No biggie. No need to hide it. We’d welcome it. We would not be so paralysed by the fear of ‘what if it does not work out’. We’d have a growth mindset and feel empowered instead.
- Most failures aren’t fatal and can be course-corrected (and that’s a good thing – back to point 9 we are often being steered into a better direction), but if you don’t try, you’ll always wonder “What if”. And FYI most people feel they have failed at some point in their life. They feel unfulfilled and they didn’t go for what they desired. All humans have to grieve sometimes. To grieve that life and things didn’t pan out in the way they’d had thought it would or hoped it would. Many didn’t pursue their dreams and still felt a failure because the fear of failure got the best of them. As Jim Carry says “You can fail at what you don’t want so you might as well take a shot at what you do want”
- Only those who dare to fail, dare to try things and put themselves out there truly achieve. Only those souls, truly feel fulfilled.
