@incidentalaccident
Hello everybody. I have been reading a lot about failure lately, podcasts etc. The general theme seems to be that failure can be positive as a way to learn and as a route to success. I have always been unsure about that because it feels like a fairly middle-class sort of approach, where failure is OK because there is a financial safety net. Anyway, full disclosure, I am middle-class and I think I am about to fail and although this is not a threat to income as such, I don't think I have a psychological safety net. In brief, I am about to finish a book, which will be published, and I think it's possibly quite shit. If/when it 'fails,' the failure could be vaguely public (to colleagues and peers) and I am absolutely terrified. I know this is so self-obsessed and self-indulgent - there are so many people struggling with incomparably bigger problems than this one. But I am trying to think of upsides of this and I am struggling. AIBU and is anyone prepared to discuss this with me and tell me about their failures?! Or just to get over myself.
OP take the failure concept from the one and only arena that understands it - sport. I'm a sports coach and PT and this is part of our daily language.
My younger athletes throw all self identity into a sport I coach, they are measured in terms of training times, goals, targets etc weekly, in competitions, on scoreboards, in leagues, and they suck it up if they fail because they need to fail (or as we say, just don't make the time to qualify, or whatever) because that just shines a light on how they need to improve, and to outshine the competition, get on top and stay there. Every Han on earth fails regularly and in sport we know this take it as a fact of life and work with it strategically.
In many ways it's brutal but worth it but failure is necessary. It's the other side of the coin.
I feel like noone outside sport really understands exactly how to experience failure productively simply as a step along the way.
You need to get way more systematic about failure like we do, have the goal, pursue it in a dedicated way, make the mistakes, have tunnel vision, don't care about outside voices, tune them all out, lose the pride, feel humility, dedicate to your goal/craft and just keep on keeping on. It's a journey OP, own how far you've come, be proud of your work and your passion, don't let other people's views of you define you, and commit to the fact that it's a lifelong goal to improve and this book is one excellent step along the way but like us all you will always have a long way to go. And be proud. One day you could be one of the best there has ever been in wiring about what you write about, but only if you can take this all on the chin repeatedly - champions always do. Good luck, you're trying which is a hell of a lot more than most.