What’s so scary about failing?

You learn so much more from fucking something up or when things don’t go as planned.

It forces you out of auto-pilot and into a state of self-reflection — What went wrong? How can I move on from this?

Failures and setbacks are the real lessons in life to draw and learn from. So why do we try to avoid them at all costs?

Even the greatest fail at times.

Serena Williams lost in the 1st round of a grand slam at the 2012 French Open after winning 13 grand slams. She’s won 10 more since then and is considered to be one of the greatest of all time athletes.

In the same year Sandra Bullock won a Best Actress Oscar, she also took home a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress — she took it in good stride and even turned up to accept her Razzie, making her more endearing and beloved!

Madonna, Mariah Carey and Britney Spears all had album flops in their long careers — but they managed to bounce back.

Even Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy before the golden years of iPod, iPhones and iPads.

If failures happen to the best of us, isn’t it better to accept the inevitable and try to learn from it?

Some failures force us to hold a mirror to our life choices and goals in life — is this what I really want? Is the energy I put into this worth the cost? If you manage to keep ego and pride at bay, you might recognise the crossroad that’s being presented in your life and muster up the courage to choose the path that might not be what you necessarily want right now, but need.

I used to think that to be accepted, I needed to be like everyone else — not realising that my greatest assets and strengths were within. Instead of harnessing what made me unique, fear blocked the treasures inside of me.

Clearly it didn’t work.

It just left me feeling disconnected, anxious and resentful. No matter how great my successes were on paper or in people’s eyes, there was always someone doing better. It left me paralysed with fear and wallowing in low self-worth due to my tunnel vision of what it meant to be successful.

So in the past few years, I’ve focused my energies into learning how to be brave and creating a true north not dictated by someone else’s expectations of me. Being brave is not about the absence of fear, but having the courage to be vulnerable — to press on in spite of fear. It’s about actually letting yourself feel those emotions that come from setbacks and failures without letting them crush you, because there will always be moments in your life where try as you might, you still come up short.

…and that’s okay.

Hopefully you learn something about yourself. The silver lining in hitting rock bottom is that it teaches you which values you will never compromise again — the emotional, financial, mental or spiritual pain is too just too great.

I accept that I am not perfect and that’s okay.

If I’m not good in this area, competency or activity, why am I burning myself out trying? Who am I trying to prove wrong? Why does it matter in the long run?

By being brave and accepting that failure might happen, you take the pressure off your shoulders and start doing things not because they might amount to something, but because of curiosity and inquisitiveness.

Giving myself permission to nurture my creativity in both personal and professional has given me so much more purpose in life than trying to be a cookie cutter someone else. Its makes me realise that its the process and journey that matters, the end result is just an after-thought.