I Don’t Believe in Failure

I walked outside, reached into the mailbox, and pulled out a fancy envelope. It was made of thick brown paper, sealed in wax, with my name and address written in calligraphy. I was intrigued. By the look of things, I was going to be a special guest at an invitation-only event.

I carefully opened the envelope and felt disappointed to realize this was an invitation to attend a preschool graduation ceremony followed by a catered, themed after-party.

All this just for surviving preschool?

Graduations, celebrations, and parties for every basic life milestone are just not my thing. However, at the other end of the spectrum, we find the opposite mindset. This one is rooted in a fear of failure so deep that no one ever takes a risk and therefore, they have nothing to celebrate.

I’d like to suggest a third way.

Recently I was preparing for a podcast, and I mentioned that I don’t believe in failure. This statement was met with some surprise. I think failure is a social construct designed to limit people and produce life choices that are more predictable. Our cultural fear of failure keeps us in jobs that minimize our gifts and in friendships that are no longer meaningful, forces us to second-guess emerging interests and passions, prevents us from wrestling with hard questions, and generally limits our life experiences.

I believe that what we often call failure often falls into two categories: learning things and ending things. This shift in my thinking profoundly impacts how I navigate the world.

As a former college coach, there were occasions when we tried a new system or a line-up, and it didn’t immediately produce the desired outcome. Administrators, parents, and fans often said we had failed. However, it never felt that way to me. In those moments, we learned what didn’t work and that moved us one step closer to what did work.

This is the approach that scientists embrace. Someone has a hypothesis, so they test it. In the process, they move through all the wrong answers and discover the right one. I don’t think it is a failure if it ultimately aids in finding a solution.

I am always surprised when people talk about a fear of failure as they consider new possibilities in their lives. I often hear that a career change, or pursuing a new academic path is just too risky because, “I might fail, and I hate failure.” How would these moments of discernment be different if that person said, “I might learn something, and I hate learning.”

Most of us see the absurdity in that mindset! Reframing failure as learning would free people to take risks and try new things all in the pursuit of growth.

Failure could also be called an ending. However, many people fear ending things because they don’t want to be called a quitter. In our culture, to quit is to fail.  

While I have quit MANY things in my life, I don’t consider myself a quitter. There are several logical reasons I have made the decision to end things.

First, I may end something simply because I don’t want to do it anymore. For a long time, I enjoyed and wanted to be a college coach, and then one day, I didn’t want that anymore. There were plenty of people in my life who saw this decision as a failure because I quit. However, I believe it is healthy to pursue what you desire in life.

I have also recognized seasons of my life, where I ended something simply because I didn’t need to do that thing anymore. For about a year, I need a mentor to help me navigate some parts of my business. But in time, I no longer needed a mentor, and I ended that relationship. Did I fail because that ended? No, I simply recognized that I was ready to move into a new season of life.

There are other times when I have ended something because what was once life-giving was no longer life-giving. To be stewards of our own gifts, talents, and skills requires us to say yes to life-giving things while saying no to the things that drain us.

I am also deeply aware that when we end something, we are making space for something new to grow. We can’t expect new things to emerge in our life when we are still holding on to old, outdated things. We need to be intentional about setting down that which is no longer ours to carry.

The truth is, we would never say, “Well, we signed Timmy up for preschool today and that is where he will stay forever. We didn’t raise a quitter.” Instead – much to my chagrin – we go all-out in celebrating the little Timmys of the world when they do move on to Kindergarten. I’d like us to also celebrate adults who live their lives in alignment.

I think people would remove the shackles that a fear of failure produces and lean into and embrace the life they were created to live if we simply celebrated taking a risk. Maybe we need to respond to those decisions with fancy envelopes and themed parties rather than showering others with fear and shame.

What others call failure may just learning, ending, and graduating to something new.

Here’s to fewer preschool parties and more I-am-taking-a-risk-and-trying-something-new celebrations.

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