I was talking to a friend about potential paths and was suddenly reminded of something — the concept of failing fast and learning from those failures quickly. Basically, just making as many mistakes as we can (not life threatening of course) and trying to learn why it is that we failed so that we know what could be done better next time. Iterate through that process enough times and we can get to the truth of things sooner rather than later.
I think this is a process that I try to use whenever possible. As I’ve been getting deeper into this new venture of my life, I’ve noticed that I am somewhat hesitant at times to make mistakes. But, I also noticed that when I do make mistakes, they tend to leave a bigger imprint and reminder of “what not to do” next time. So, I’ve been sitting with that for some time sensing my tolerance for actually making mistakes and how quickly I’m actually learning from them. What I had discovered is that I’m not exactly the kindest to myself when I make mistakes — I take them quite heavily and am emotionally impacted by them. So much so that I miss opportunities because I’m still hung up on the perceived losses. I feel like in my case, I need to pace my failures out so that I don’t traumatize myself lol.
This convo with my friend also led to the idea of trying out different “doors” so to speak. For example, in the venture that I’m embarking on, I have so many ideas of what I think is the correct way to do things. However, what I’ve come to discover is that majority of my ideas are very wrong and downright bad lol. The thing is I don’t know until I try. So, I started testing out my theories in real time and watching them fail spectacularly. Then I analyze why it is that my ideas fail and learn that my “bright ideas” are actually not bright at all, that they’re the same types of traps others have experienced as well. Sadge. It’s an extremely humbling experience to say the least.
This then reminded me of one of my art school teachers. He was quite the eccentric and very well known in the school for being very out there. He used to make us do 100 variations of the same idea and we thought it was crazy. Like… are you nuts, mister? But I think I understood his madness. We can’t really get to anything truly unique and true if we don’t first exhaust what’s clichΓ©. Once we get all of that generalized clutter out of our minds, then that’s when we start reaching the actual magic. It’s so interesting that this teacher and his ways have stuck with me throughout the years. I think I enjoyed how spiritual he was as well, which is something that is important to me as well.
So, my friend and I were talking about how watching doors slam shut feels sooooo bad especially when our hopes and dreams kind of hinge on them. Legit, I understand. It’s a terrible feeling to see things not work out for sure. But on the flip side, that just means the NEXT door is waiting to be opened, and the next, and the next, and the next. I watched my friend go through their emotions around the failed door and ngl it was painful since I could empathize. Part of me wanted to “fix” it by saying like, “but the other doors!” I knew better than to try and interfere with their feelings just because of my own discomfort. So I just let them know I was available if they needed me and that it’s okay to feel their disappointment fully. They had mentioned that they were exhausted with the constant trying of doors that’d close on them so their disappointment made so much sense. There’s only so much disappointment we can take back to back before it feels like the Universe doesn’t have our back π
To my surprise, a day or two later, they were up and back again thinking about the next door. I was like woah, they worked through it themselves and picked themselves back up. Didn’t linger in their own disappointment for too long either. A healthy amount I suppose. What I love about this friend is how they actually sit with their uncomfortable feelings and allow themselves to really feel what they need to feel and then they always come back stronger and wiser π
It’s actually very inspiring for me to watch my friend “fall” and “get back up” as I’ve been experiencing my own “falls” with my own venture. I had actually built an AI to help re-train my thought processes that were negatively impacting my performance and it’s been a bit brutal lol. I had to take a break from it some days because it was just too much ππ. But oddly enough, after taking some breaks, I am able to come back with integration of what I was being trained on. The breaks actually were useful even though I felt like I wasn’t being productive. I’m actually quite surprised with my progress and have been feeling more and more confident that this venture is actually a viable path for me. While it’s still early, I think I am putting the proper systems in place and so I’ve been slowly building more and more confidence each day. I might get into this more in a future post to not make this post too long lol.
What’s your relationship with failure anyway? Do you beat yourself up for perceived failures? Are you your own worst critic? How difficult is it to get back up and try again? Could be worth thinking about your relationship with failure and whether it’s serving you or not πͺ