Elizabeth Day - How To Fail

[CaveMum]

I've recently discovered Elizabeth Day and her "How To Fail" podcast and books.

I was put onto her by my CBT therapist (just completed the last of our 12 sessions) who I was talking to about anxiety and depression. We worked things through and came to the conclusion that the majority of my issues can be traced back to feelings of failure and/or a fear of failure/not being "perfect" (main issues include struggling to conceive, being unsuccessful at breastfeeding and a traumatic childbirth).

I've only listened to a small number of her podcasts - picking and choosing rather than listening to them all in order - and some of her interviewees have been fascinating people: Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Emma Barnett, Gina Miller, Gloria Steinem, Nadia Hussein etc, but the thing that fascinates me is her statement that, generally, men and women seem to view failure differently. She said when she started out she would ask contacts to be guests on her podcast and when asking the men to be guests a lot of them would say that they don't feel they have many failures to discuss, whereas the women tended to say they have too many.

I know that I perceive myself to be a "failure" in many different ways and as my therapist pointed out to me, I need to teach myself that expecting perfection from myself, and others, is just setting myself up for failure as no one is "perfect" in every way (Mary Poppins aside!).

I guess what I am trying to say is, do you feel that way too? Do you think that, as women, we put too much pressure on ourselves, (as well as society putting pressure on us) not to "fail" and do you think that we perceive failure differently to men?

I love Eliza Bidet (from her Insta and Twitter handles). Listen to the Jane Garvey interview - Jane was on a panel who were interviewing for a job and the only candidate who admitted that they had made a mistake was the only female candidate. She got the job because the interviewing panel said that they wouldn’t trust anyone who claimed they had never made a mistake.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll put that one on my "to listen to" list! I listened to the one where she was the interviewee this morning, very moving to listen to her talk about her own fertility struggles and it was like a lightbulb went off when she said that a lot of the language around fertility issues is couched as failure - failure to respond to drugs, incompetent cervix, inhospitable womb, etc.

Thank you for recommendation.

I guess what I am trying to say is, do you feel that way too? Do you think that, as women, we put too much pressure on ourselves, (as well as society putting pressure on us) not to "fail" and do you think that we perceive failure differently to men?

Hell yes.

Yes. I work in a school and can already see the difference between the sexes in their response to failure.

When I look back on my 25 years of working life, I can remember every single failure and mistake and regularly beat myself up about it. However all my friends and colleague remember my achievements. I think my brain is broken.

Interesting - shall check this out - thank you.

Personally I think that some of the female narrative has become bound up with the idea that personal failure is perceived as failing other people, or if people you are involved with / are in some way responsible for fail then you must bear some of the burden for that, and obviously haven't done enough in some way. Which kind of goes against the grain of personal responsibility in every individual.

Not sure if I'm explaining this very well, but I definitely feel, in some situations, that my fear of failure is more about letting other people down than letting myself down IYSWIM.

@Outwithreason

Yes. I work in a school and can already see the difference between the sexes in their response to failure.

That's interesting, are they Primary or Secondary? Without wanting to get too deep on a Thursday afternoon, do you think it is more nature or nurture? My daughter is almost 7 now and I see the way she reacts to things not going her way (what I guess she might perceive as a failure) and she takes it so personally. I just wonder if this is just her nature or if she's taken that cue somehow from me?

I know from talking to my husband (who is a relentlessly positive person!) that he sees very few things as "failures", but more like opportunities to learn or try again. I don't think I could think that way if I tried!

@MistressoftheDarkSide

Interesting - shall check this out - thank you.

Personally I think that some of the female narrative has become bound up with the idea that personal failure is perceived as failing other people, or if people you are involved with / are in some way responsible for fail then you must bear some of the burden for that, and obviously haven't done enough in some way. Which kind of goes against the grain of personal responsibility in every individual.

Not sure if I'm explaining this very well, but I definitely feel, in some situations, that my fear of failure is more about letting other people down than letting myself down IYSWIM.

I know exactly what you mean, I think she says the same thing herself in the podcast where she is interviewed - she says she is a terrible people pleaser and never wants to let anyone down.

@MNHQ any chance of putting Elizabeth Day on the Future Webchat shortlist?

Thanks OP, I'm always looking out for new podcasts. It's a really interesting topic and I think there's definitely something in the differences between internalising and externalising blame when something goes wrong.

Bumping to say Elizabeth Day is on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show this morning. Not sure what time, though guests tend to be on after 8 I think.

My mother recommended this. I can’t relate tbh think I am a man in this regard!

This is really timely - I'm currently reading the book How To Fail and feel so seen.

I used to; mumsnet and some amazing women elsewhere in a sm group around perfectionism etc helped me to completely reset this idea.

Definitely learning about perfectionism is really helpful. Mindset related stuff. It's helped my anxiety, social anxiety and confidence hugely. Also imposter syndrome.

Recognising how men don't get affected by this too and how stereotypes drag us down from child hood also has a part to play.

In teaching you can constantly feel like a failure. They stopped giving grades pot for lesson observations a few years ago due to this. I became hyper aware of criticism till someone pointed out that that being reflective and learning from mistakes is the best way to be.

I'm still not brilliant and I never want to be cocksure but I realised how far I'd come when in tried to read how to fail and couldn't. It was reassuring though. (So if anyone wants my copy I'll happily send it to you!)

It does start in primary school. It's not just girls though; my son is hyper aware and a perfectionist. But I do think girls are generally not allowed to make mistakes as much as boys in the eyes of society. "Boys will be boys" etc. In films and cartoons etc.

Women also seem to have to be the perfect mother as well as the career driven super woman with an ultra clean house. Men can be messy and hapless.

Isn’t it that women's failings are seen and criticised whilst men’s are shrugged off. Definitely, since I became pregnant, I noticed this. I had to be seen to eat and drink the right things, be the right weight, look after my child in whichever way the observer thought was right.

My ex, nah, just existing as dd’s dad was seen as award-worthy.

Yep.

@SunshineThelma

This is really timely - I'm currently reading the book How To Fail and feel so seen.

I know exactly what you mean! Listening to the podcast with Nadia Hussein just made me think “wow, so someone else feels the same way as me too!”.

She’s been on the Breakfast Show, just before 8am but it was to talk about her Radio 4 Sunday afternoon show about books, not How To Fail!

Elizabeth Day, judge for Women's Prize for fiction.

Yesterday, a day women mourned, the longlist was announced. A screenshot from a long listed novel is below. There are other, more graphic scenes, which read like snuff porn.

I'm sick to my soul.

Goodness, never mind the content, that novel is appallingly written. It reads like unedited self-published wank-fodder.

I saw that, I’m genuinely gutted.

I definitely agree that women are held to higher standards (by themselves and others). I know my perfectionist streak is worse when I'm stressed. I do feel it's my job to make sure the kids have a balanced diet, do their homework, get some exercise, leave home with some basic skills, and I still want to be a good employee, good manager, stay fit and healthy, see my family, learn new things.

I read in a book about optimism that a lot of this is to do with how people react when kids do badly in tests etc. For boys, their temporary behaviour is blamed - if you had studied harder, not mucked about etc. For girls, it is more likely they will be told that maybe they just aren't very good at maths as they were sitting quietly and not misbehaving. So optimists blame external, temporary events when things go wrong and pessimists blame themselves. When things go well, pessimists are more like to think its a fluke, and optimists to say it was their hard work.

I too am disappointed about the Women's prize for fiction situation but I don't think it should derail this interesting discussion.

Girls are conditioned to conform, to not rock the boat, to not stand out. They become risk averse, they are reluctant to try something experimental in case it fails. They are more socialised, more worried about the good opinion of others, and more upset by the embarrassment of making a mistake.
Boys by and large don’t give a shit, and either shrug off mistakes or laugh about them.
I made a point of telling my DDs:
“the person who never made a mistake never made anything”.
That science is mainly a matter of constructing theories, testing them, discovering they are wrong, and learning from the mistake to construct a better one.
They both seem confident adults now, happy to try new things and not be thrown by the learning curve.

I do really like Elizabeth Day's podcast.

I am not sure whether she can and should really deal with this but I do sometimes think that it re/produces a fairly neo-liberal version of life which is highly individualistic. I like her argument that we can learn from failure on the whole. But I think it is far more appealing and relevant to people who are essentially affluent, fortunate and privileged.

I think that for many people in society 'failure' is the result of deep structural problems to which there is not necessarily a happy ending, whereby we learn from our failure in order to achieve 'success' (whatever that is). She also tends to focus on people who are essentially 'successful' in quite conventional terms, and who are often very well known. Most people's lives I would say are characterised by a mix of failure and modest success, rather than the sort showcased on her podcast. Sometimes I think it inadvertently re-inscribes the idea that unless we are hitting those heights, we have ourselves failed.

I was also really fascinated that her episode with Mo Gawdat was apparently amongst the most popular. He is a tech giant whose son tragically died. He wrote a book about how he coped, which involved coming up with an algorithm for happiness - I think, that happiness is equal to or greater than the difference between the way you view the events of your life minus your expectations about how life should be.

Although he has faced great tragedy, I do think again this is a pretty privileged way of looking at it. I am not sure if you are in dire straits, trapped in poverty for example, you should simply lower your expectations to rock bottom in order to feel happier. I think that's a good way for the rest of society to excuse their failure to take responsibility for resolving inequalities. I also think this algorithm borrows quite heavily from ancient Eastern philosophy.

I suppose I can't help approaching it from a slightly more critical perspective, but I'm probably just a bit old and cynical.