Most of the people I coach have a horror of failure. They set up their lives to avoid failing, to insulate themselves from any possibility that they might be seen being less than terrific at something.
Now, if you asked them, “what are some uses of failure? what’s it good for? why do we need to fail sometimes?” I’m sure they could give you good answers, answers that might look like this: “Oh, I tell my teams it’s important to make mistakes because you learn from them, and I even set them up to do things on their own where they may fail in a controlled atmosphere, where I can help them.”
But if you push, and say, “What about you? What’s something you need to fail at in order to grow?” you can watch their bodies tense up and their brains spin, coming up with all the reasons why that’s not such a good idea.
When you lift weights, sometimes you “go to failure.” That means you go until you can’t go anymore, you add weight until you have surpassed the maximum your body can move, and you drop it. You fail the lift. Everyone in the gym knows that this is the assignment—you go until you fail. The failure is the point. It’s literally how you get stronger.
How can we find places to practice failing, getting it wrong, making mistakes? We know it’s good for us, but like so many things, we avoid it because it’s scary. Where can you go to failure? What might be on the other side?
