The theme of this past week for me was failure. There were a few instances in which I didn’t quite reach an intended goal, or get the response I was seeking from someone else. And, as I think many of us do, I began to get hyper self-critical and doubt my ideas, my dreams, and even some of my relationships.

In general, that’s sort of our natural reaction to instances of failure, isn’t it? We conjecture about our future capabilities based on past failures. We’ve all heard it (and done it) before: someone we know doesn’t get hired for a job and automatically concludes, “I’ll never find work.” Or, a friend gets hurt in a relationship and vows to “never fall in love again.” To which we all chuckle and think, “Yeah…OK.”

In the heat of the moment, our response to failure is to shut down, close off, get angry, be defensive or just sit there and pout unproductively. Why? Because we live in a culture where worthiness is based on the accumulation and assessment of one’s past successes and failures. We are terrified of failing because we fear that our failures are indicative of our unworthiness.

The subtle message we are sent over and over again is that in order to be worthy- of a great career, a beautiful family, true love, great friends, financial stability- we need to avoid high-risk, high-probability-of-failure opportunities as much as possible. But, of course, the opportunities that require us to take the most risk and the biggest leap of faith are the ones that reap the kind of authentic, notable success that we all dream of acquiring.

Here’s the crazy catch: we’ve got to fail in order to succeed. The chances of achieving perfect success in any undertaking the first time around are slim-to-none. Thus, failure is the only way to really learn how to do things better. Put simply, failure is, more often than not, a prerequisite for success.

So, the best lesson I’ve learned after the week I just had is this: keep being totally awesome at failure. Keep stumbling, asking hard questions, questioning the assumptions, being emotional, pursing passions, staying honest, wearing your heart on your sleeve, taking risks, and making unconventional choices. Keep being you. 

And, keep believing in your wildest dreams- even when the odds are stacked against you and others are doubting your sanity. Why? Because failure happens to those who are brave enough to live the boldest possible life.

Our failures teach us who we are, how we can become better, which of our relationships are genuine and genuinely matter. From failure, we learn the power that tenacity, determination and passion have in carrying us through some of our roughest moments in life.


So long as we can look for the lesson in- and learn from- our missteps and mistakes, we’ll be just fine. And when we look back one day, in the midst of our success, it will be apparent: our failures were some of the best things that could have ever happened to us.