For forth and fail. Fail big, make it a huge, a whopper of a failure. And when you’re done with that, next time try failing even bigger! And once you’ve failed bigger then go out and fail in the best way you know possible. Do whatever you can to fail. No one ever heard those words ever and that’s very sad.
We encourage our children to produce, be excellent, seek perfection, do your very best at what ever you do. Bs and Cs are not good enough, we reward them when they bring home a perfect report card. We cheer them on and post on Facebook when they win, get awards. If we only lived on Facebook then everyone’s child is perfect. Let’s face it, just because it got posted to the internet does not make it true.
Let’s think about the messaging we are sending our children. Be great or who cares. What if we told them to go out and fail, fail again, fail better? What if they came home with tears in their eyes because they lost and we hugged them and told them how proud we were no matter how they did. Not all children are fortunate to live in that household. Most kids feel this pressure to be perfect, to win, to perform and exceed everyone else. What they really need to hear is that they need to fail because life isn’t about being perfect it is about failing, getting back up and trying again. Life is about learning to lose even more graciously than you win. No one is perfect no matter what Facebook tells us and no one’s child always wins.
No wonder as adults we have this neurotic need to perform, excel, succeed and keep up with those darn ‘Jones’ whoever they might be in our lives. We live with the kookie ideas that everyone is watching us and we have to be perfect to be worthy of our next promotion. Or we showed up today on time and ready to work so we should receive a trophy, right? Teaching people that failure is good, losing is a goal AND that they are worthy simply because they gave it their all no matter the outcome SHOULD be the lesson. Being able to dissect our problems and plow through them smarter, wiser, and more self aware THAT is the life lesson that grows strong, healthy and secure self images.
So here’s your challenge for today, fail big! Huge, make it a big blown up mess and figure out why you failed. Learn from it, feel your own soul grow and become as you get back up and do it again. Anyone who did anything great failed big time, a lot of times, and kept failing until they got it right. Give yourself and your team and your family the opportunity to fail AND keep encouraging them. Let them know how proud you are of them for failing…maybe even post it on the internet and shock the world.
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