Dear Human, Hello in June! Last month was somehow creatively hard for me, and you could see it in the decreased frequency of newsletters. Not two per month as promised. There were plenty of other reasons for feeling quite bad about myself too. In the end, May, instead of being the Mental Health Awareness Month, proved to be the Struggle with Failure Month. Even if it feels like this is oversharing of bitterness, I wanted to share my frustration, the sense this struggle, because maybe you too fight your demons. If not, for sure, you will face them sooner or later. That is why, in the spirit of courage and honesty, let's talk about how any progress is basically a constant fight with the sense of defeat. (#I'mSoGrimm) But it wasn't only a month of personal approach to failure, I had also a chance to look at the issue from the meta level. I was also chewing theoretically on this problem, at POINT conference in Sarajevo I led the panel discussion about Fuck Ups in Civic Tech. |
|
|
So how does the failure work for us, humans?
There is perfectionism, there are expectations that are too big, there might be planning that sometimes takes a bit of the wrong turn, without space for for evaluation and improvements. And then, as a consequence, there might be frustration, there can be shame with all the range of hard emotions that can accompany them.
In summary: it's occurring often and the feeling of failing is hard to deal with. Perhaps there are cultures where it is less stressful, but where I come from, such an event too often makes humans feel not good enough.
|
|
|
Let's then deal with a few of the issues from above. #1 PERFECTIONISM
The School of Life, in their brilliant explanation of what perfectionism is and how to deal with it, says:
Perfectionism is only a problem because we have underbudgeted for difficulty, not because we are aiming high. (...) Our perfectionism starts to torture us when we lack information on how hard others had to work and how much they had suffered before reaching their ideas of perfection.
You can watch this short video here.
In general, what to do when feeling like we are failing in achieving perfection and that our actions are not worth much? Looks like searching for stories of other people struggles can be the answer. However, since we rarely share stories about the struggles, and rather highlighting successes, sometimes it's hard to find consolation around. That is why Fuck-Up Nights and similar events make sense. This is where we can learn that what looks easy from outside, is actually more complex, more difficult that we would think. From now on, let's make it real from the start, giving ourselves space and time for evaluation and improvements. Even the newsletter today is my way of not abandoning my expectations of having a newsletter, while admitting that the expectation of writing twice a month is quite ambitious for me, taking into account that writing is not really my medium. It works in every case, no matter if you plan a project at work, or if you are trying to change something in your life (like a change of a habit). Anticipating the struggles will help in overcoming them. I personally like the approach of iterating, so let's prototype and see how it works and then see what I could learn from how it went. And this is what I love in the coaching job, it's basically accompanying people in learning from iterations and cheering for them on the way, not letting the goal out of sight.
|
|
|
#2 EMOTIONS OF FAILURE Ok, but let's explore also this feeling of not being good enough. Sometimes leading to shame and isolation. (A quick side note: for many of us, burning out is a fail too and something shameful - when we feel like the worst people in the world, you can read my blog post about it here). Emily Nagoski recently uploaded this advice on her Instagram: |
|
|
Again, it is all about connecting with other imperfect humans. And being courageously honest about how we failed and how does it makes us feel. Both sides are hard. One: admitting that there is a fuck up is so fundamentally against the culture of promotion of successes, that it just makes it totally awkward. Only for that, we need super-strength. But the second part of telling how it makes us feel can be even more difficult. That makes vulnerable. If in your life there is nobody, with whom you feel like you can share your struggles, that would be my first advice: go find somebody you can trust with your struggles and feelings (and avoid perfectionism, trusting somebody is a process, even in the movies we start trusting one another, only after having some proofs of trustworthiness). |
|
|
With all that in mind, let's remember that nothing helps better than remembering we don't suck in everything and that there were at least small victories in our life. (remember the importance of small successes newsletter?).
When feeling defeated, just come back in time and recall your last success of any sort, pump yourself a bit, remind yourself about your talents, resources and strengths and only from there, come back to the cycle of iterating. In order for this panacea to work better, I strongly recommend to use it in a conversation with a friend or a coach. They can prevent defeatism and spiraling on negative thoughts.
Here is my gift for you if you want to use this process in practice Handout for Failure Coaching |
|
|
|
|
