Via gutter @ Flickr.
I’m considering this as a possible regular feature. Let me know what you think, and feel free to send me those thoughts and quotes that you’ve found useful.
I’m starting one of my two jobs this week, and one day in, it feels like I’ve been handed a moth-eaten top hat, dropped between an arthritic dancing bear and a cage full of hungry lions, and instructed to run a three-ring circus. NOW. Not knowing how it’s going to go–or even where it is supposed to go–has me pretty clenchy.
If you can’t make a mistake, you can’t make anything.
That quote is from Marva Collins, an educator who spent her career working with underprivileged kids who were being written off as learning disabled or otherwise ineducable. She gave her students challenging material (Plato’s Republic for fourth-graders?) and set high standards, but also created the kind of environment where students felt safe to dig around in their own heads, try things out, and, well, fail.
It’s a great gift to allow someone the freedom to fail, and it’s not one that I’m likely to give myself. A lot of people fear failure as if it is something avoidable (not always) shameful (not really), and worst of all, permanent (not on your life). I think women particularly feel the pressure of perpetual success, and even of perfection, given that in many arenas we still must do more and better than the average dude to be considered equally competent.
The fear of failure, though, can work like a vise on creative thinking and productive work. “I’m going to screw this up” can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, or it can just result in mental lockjaw. You can’t fail if you don’t try, right? Why do something if you can’t do it perfectly? If it doesn’t work out, they’ll know I’m a fraud. I’ll do it after lunch/tomorrow/next month/when I’m “ready.” No one deserves that kind of pressure.
I am, as perhaps you’ve guessed, terribly familiar with this kind of thinking, even though I know that it’s far more destructive to my mental health and ability to work than just about any professional “failure” (a crappy draft, a boring lecture, an inelegantly run meeting) could be. So, as I’m caroming around, trying to figure out just what it is I’ve gotten myself into with Barnum and Bailey University, I’m trying to remember to give myself the freedom to fail, so I take the chances I need to take and try out all the ideas I have to try.
I’m guessing I’m not the only one who could use a reminder.
Thanks for this. As paradoxical as it may sound, this is especially something smart kids and overachievers need to hear (not dissing on anyone – I’m one of them myself). If you’re really good at something, it’s very easy to just keep doing that and rake in praise for that rather than going out and doing something at which you might not be that good. Being used to succeeding at what you do and getting praise for it also makes failing much harder to digest. I especially like your last sentence – that allowing yourself to fail is actually freeing.
I definitely vote for this as a regular feature!
And I agree with you and Stacey that it’s a message we all need. I tend to stick to things that I know I’m good at so I never get pushed from my comfort zone, and I’ve made an effort over the years to change that (like years of karate training, at which I was a C+ student, at best, and running). I don’t think I ever lost my fear of failing…I just learned that if I did fail it wasn’t the end of the world.
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible, even for individuals.
Thanks for this – I just started a challengingly open-ended, unstructured sort of job as well and am having a lot of the same fears about failure. I didn’t grow up being allowed to use “I made a mistake” as an excuse (so easy to blame the ‘rents, I know), and I’ve always been my harshest critic.
I’ve started talking myself into things by saying what the “worst possible outcome” would be – and it’s usually something like “I’ll have to explain myself” or “X won’t work and I’ll have to try Y”
I rarely wind up with “I’ll end up dead on the street.”
and that sculpture is really beautiful
I really needed this today! I too am at a “challengingly open ended, unstructured sort of job” and it is terrifying. I realize how addicted I am to praise and accomplishment and how it stifles me into already-trod paths. And exacerbates my procrastination, great point. Lately I have been trying to consciously dedicate my work to others to try to wrench it from my ego. We’ll see. I’d love to have a teacher like you who left room for failure.
Thanks for the reminder. I definitely do this too, all the time–J.D. regent’s description of being “addicted to praise” is good.
I do try to force myself to step out of the box, and am starting a job that I feel totally unprepared for soon, but there is always a temptation to do what is familiar.
In school, the moments when I enjoyed it most and did best were my first year of college, when I wasn’t expecting to do well, and felt free to enjoy my work but also not stress about it. I ended up getting really good grades and surprising myself with it, and felt a certain pressure afterwards to keep it at that level which, in retrospect, was both unhealthy and counterproductive.
That quote is going on my wall right next to a couple others that remind me to occationally fight my perfectionist impulses.
“The great is the enemy of the good.”
“No Matter.
Try Again.
Fail Again.
Fail Better.” – Samuel Beckett
Hey, I have that sculpture! It’s sitting in my living room, contemplating an hour glass. The vignette encapsulates my current fixation on how damn fast time seems to be passing these days.
Anyways, I am trying (not very successfully) to transition out of law into a new career. I have been feeling a bit like a failure lately, as though somehow this one rough patch erases the many years of success that came before. Ugh.
I was so paralysed by perfectionism/fear of failure that I ended up achieving very little between the ages of 16 and 23.
Now I set myself much lower standards and am very productive. (I could talk about this issue at great length with numerous examples.)
In summary, I’m a fan of making a decent effort – regularly and frequently, and forgiveness.
The need to be absolutely one hundred percent perfect at everything I do is the main reason I’m not doing what I wanted to do with my life right now. I’m starting to knock some of those walls down, but it’s really goddamn hard.
I have found my fear of failure especially trying in academia. There’s this weird combination of old-boys/ivory-tower/ traditional/we-always-do-it-THIS-way/hidebound traditions, and new/innovative/modern/wave-of-the-future/free-form novelty. The result (in my experience) is the appearance that everything runs smoothly and everyone knows what they’re doing, but when you’re doing it yourself, it’s a bit of a free-fall. Good luck.
I have lots of sayings I like, but I thought I’d throw out this beloved chestnut: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” (Gandhi) I use it to remind myself to live my own principles with integrity, without violence or antagonism. (And not just fume helplessly, or yell uselessly.)
Justina, I thought about including that Beckett quote as a post-script. I love it, have it written/posted several places, and even have an email address derived from it. Whenever I hear people go on about how bleak Beckett’s work is, I have to think they’ve never actually read his stuff.
mkp, that cognitive-behavioral model is good stuff: follow the logic. What happens if the boss/teacher doesn’t like what you produce? Will the sky fall? Will you be publically mocked for your errors? Will you be kicked off the island? Or will you just have to revise your work? Well, that’s no big deal.
(End of Day 2 Report: A teeny tiny car crammed full of angry clowns with Agendas and Delicate Feelings is now part of my circus. It gives me something for each ring, but I’m still lacking an actual tent.)
Good luck, PH.Dork!
Does the quotation have to be from a woman?
Thank you for this. I, too, am a perfectionist/overachiever who went through a serious bout of “fraud syndrome” when I first started my PhD program. Now, as a 5th year with most of my research done, I’m comfortable with the professional aspects of my life. But I’ve dealt with a number of difficulties in my personal life this year (divorce, loss of once-trusted “friends”) which have made me feel like a bit of a failure on that front. Now that I’m in a new social environment, I’ve been worrying about “messing up” – but I know all too well that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fittingly, I found the following message in my fortune cookie last night: “Failure is the mother of success”.
Ah, you have perfect timing.
To even add to what you’ve already said: it seems to create a jealousy of my co-workers/friends/whatever when I don’t meet my own standards, which is somewhere where I don’t want to be. It’s ridiculous.
Like Blind Irish Pirate says, perfect timing. I’m working on a paper that is shamefully–SHAMEFULLY–overdue. I have to finish it this week. I may just put this quote at the top of my header, along with
FINISHED IS BETTER THAN PERFECT,
which is what I usually use. If I do not have a constant reminder of these things I will be paralyzed. I’ve been paralyzed for the last two months.
[...] 26, 2009 · Leave a Comment I’m a big fan of The Pursuit of Harpyness, and in this post, she explores Marva Collins’ wonderful quote: If you can’t make a mistake, you [...]