Hello friends, it’s Janine from JSK Stories. And today’s Creativity Lesson hits a little close to home: Expect Failure.
I don’t know about you, but whenever I do something, I want to do it right. I have a secret desire to be the best at everything. To always be correct. To never get it wrong.
Unfortunately – and fortunately! – this isn’t possible. We are all going to make mistakes. We’re all going to mess up.
In truth, we’re all going to fail. It might be embarrassing. But it will be ok.
Failure usually results in one of two things. Sometimes, we just want to curl up in a ball. We want to throw away our work. We want to give up. We swear we will never do it again. After all, we did it wrong. So what’s the point?
This is a completely understandable and common result. However, sadly, it is also the result that stops amazing people from doing wonderful, creative things.
Which is why, when you fail (notice I said WHEN not IF), it’s important to see it as a moment of learning. Because when you get something wrong, there is always something exciting to learn. A new technique. A new insight. A new method. There is a chance to grow. And there is a chance to get better.
A very famous playwright name Samuel Beckett is also famous for saying this incredible quote.
“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
What does that mean? If you want to be a creative person, you need to accept that failure will be part of the process. And it is part of the process for EVERYONE. Instead of pulling the cover over your heads, or plunging immediately into a new project, there are a couple of things you should try.
- Celebrate! That’s right, take a moment to celebrate your failure. You took a chance! You took a risk! Eventually, those chances and risks are going to pay off.
- Reflect. The best thing you can do with a failure is to take a moment and try and figure out what went wrong. You might not see everything, but even learning one thing you could change or try differently sets you up for a higher probability of success.
- Try Again! Take what you learned and try again. The goal is to try something new. Who knows? You might fail again. And that’s ok! Just go through the steps again. You also might just succeed.
Which leads us to today’s creativity challenge: Find something that you feel you have “failed at.” Maybe it was a story you tried to write. Or a costume you tried to design. Or a song you tried to sing. Pull it out and try the above steps (Celebrate, Reflect, Try Again). Did you learn anything? Make progress?
We’d love to hear how it goes! You can share what you learned here. Who knows? We just might share it in an upcoming video.