Embracing Failure
May 17, 2011
11 Comments
Like all creative types, we writers have a pretty hefty fear of failure. We fear that we’ll never get published, that we’ll never be able to write a second book. We fear our sales will tank, our reviews will be brutal, that we’ll never have enough readers to build a career.
Even “fear of success” is really the fear that we will fail at success, that we won’t be able to rise to the occasion.
We’re bashed about the head and heart by our fears so much so that it often paralyzes us.
But it is possible to happily embrace failure and even make peace with it. Because sometimes with failure comes the freedom to soar.
What’s Behind Our Fear of Failure
The reason we fear failure is because our egos are fragile like spun glass. We fear, not the act of failure, but how it will make us feel about ourselves. Or how it will make others feel about us, which will, in turn, affect how we feel about ourselves…because most of us judge ourselves through the eyes of others.
Unfortunately, by avoiding failure, we’re doing ourselves a huge disservice. According to Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D., in The Pursuit of Perfect: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Start Living a Richer, Happier Life, our self-image actually suffers if we try to avoid failure:
“If we avoid hardships and challenges because we may fail, the message we are sending ourselves is that we are unable to deal with difficulty — in this case, unable to handle failure — and our self-esteem suffers as a result. But if we do challenge ourselves, the message we internalize is that we are resilient enough to handle potential failure.”
If our self-image is that of thinking we’re lousy writers, avoiding the possibility of failure actually reinforces that negative self-image. We don’t think we can handle failure, so we make sure it doesn’t have the opportunity to happen to us. We don’t write. We don’t submit. We stick to safe, boring ideas instead of that spark of brilliance that’s just waiting to burst out of us.
The Benefit of Failure
In her Harvard commencement address in 2008, The Fringe Benefits of Failure, J.K. Rowling said of her life before Harry Potter, which had included divorce and living on welfare, “Failure meant stripping away of the inessential…I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.”
It was only when Rowling felt like a complete failure in her life did she finally take a chance on that big idea. She realized that failure hadn’t killed her so maybe, just maybe, she could handle taking a chance on her boy wizard. She was able to soar because failure had given her freedom.
Surely you’ve failed at something before, too. Haven’t we all? Think back on your biggest failure. Did it completely ruin you? Are you a broken, beaten-down human being? Or did you bounce back?
I’m betting, because you’re here, you did a bit of bouncing. You’re thinking about writing as a career. You have ideas and words and characters in your head. Which means you aren’t a hollow shell of a person incapable of surviving failure.
We have all succeeded at beating failure of some sort in our lives. Which means we could survive it again. We just have to be willing to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt that we could not only survive failure but thrive.
Here’s an exercise for you to try: Think of your biggest failure, writing or otherwise, and write it down. Explain what happened, how you felt about it, how you got over it. Did you learn anything from your failure? If so, what? Get it all out on paper. You may be surprised to find that it looks much different from the perspective of time and a little objectivity.
It may actually show you that you have the resilience to handle anything.
Image Credit: Jez Page
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What a wonderful message. Good to remind myself to focus on what I can do – write, submit, and then let go of the outcome. If I worry too much about that and what others will think if the outcome is not what I think it should be, I’ll freeze and stop writing.
Kathy Holmes recently posted..News Flash!
Glad it was helpful, Kathy!
Thanks for a great article — and very timely for me. It’s easy to become paralyzed by fear of failure in this business. I wonder if this is the real cause of a lot of writer’s block.
I think so, Dani. By not moving forward, we avoid those things we fear. It may be totally subconscious, but still the effect is the same. If we don’t try, we are safe.
One of my favorite quotes is, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”
I don’t know if I so much embrace failure, as much as I don’t see it as failure. Just another opportunity that I jumped at. They can’t all work out, right?
Erin E. recently posted..I challenge you
True! And I think the things that don’t work out just further help to point us in the direction of what WILL work out, right?
I am in the “JK Rowling” portion of my life. And thank you for this article. It is very insightful. I’ve always wanted to write but I had to work for the paycheck and now I’m unemployed. I should be writing because I now have the time and I want to!
Message to self: Start Writing!!
I’m sorry for your unemployment, DeeAnn! But, you do have a bit of a unique opportunity, don’t you? A lot of writers would kill for time to write (which is, surprisingly, harder than it seems…all the time in the world doesn’t necessarily equal the discipline to do it). I hope, though, you can really take advantage of this time and get started. I hope you fall in love with writing! And, I’m really glad to see you here…hope we can help make the beginning of your journey a little brighter! :)
“We stick to safe, boring ideas instead of that spark of brilliance that’s just waiting to burst out of us.”
This hit home for me – it’s something I’ve been fighting my whole life. Between perfectionism and fear of failing, I fight a lot of negativity. Which somehow, I’m going to overcome. Back to the writing desk for me!
Oh, thanks, Amy! Glad that struck a cord with you. Happy writing!