The Art of Failure

You never see anyone bragging about their failures on facebook, confidently asserting their rejected job applications on their CV's or framing photos which celebrate their most humiliating moments. Failure and rejection is harrowing, it makes even the toughest of souls shrivel into a dark hole in the ground.  And yet our failures are frequently the very same experiences, moments and events that shape who and what we are more than any others. 

We all know of JK Rowling's rags to riches story; at the bottom of the barrel at 30 she goes on to become the most successful author of all time.  She's not alone: Walt Disney was fired for having no imagination and his first company went bankrupt;  Einstein couldn't speak before he was nine and was expelled from school for poor behaviour;  Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard;  Thomas Eddison couldn't keep a job; Oprah Winfrey was told she was too emotive for TV; Michael Jordan missed the hoop 9,000 times.  The list of uninspiring stories goes on and on...  

Why is it that failures and rejections are only mentioned after the person becomes wildly successful? People face failure and rejection every single day and it never makes the news, the facebook feed or the history books.  Failure is absorbed silently by the individual and we often try to pretend it never happened. We stop opening up, are less likely to express our opinions, apply for the next job or organize another event because of our fear of rejection.  We retreat, safe in the knowledge that if we don't try, we won't fail. 

But the older we get, the more we wish we had tried, that we had taken the risks and were more fearless and resilient.  The truth is, (unless you have wildly controlling parents) no one really gives a damn about your failures or your successes and the most you have to lose is your pride.  

Tall poppy syndrome (the idea that tall poppies must be cut down to size) is a wide-spread cultural disease in New Zealand. We are programmed not to try out for sports teams unless we're likely to make the top grade and are not encouraged to do theatre unless we have a shot at the main part. When I was younger, the fear of failure and rejection was often more restrictive than the failure itself. I never applied for scholarships and almost didn't even apply for university.  I never applied for a single clerkship, internship or to volunteer abroad. Even when opportunities were everywhere, I convinced myself that I wasn't eligible to apply unless I was personally tapped on the shoulder.  In hindsight, this was a ludicrous position for me to take.  We really are our own worst enemies.

It took a pretty massive intervention to change the way I thought.  It was only during an extended period of vagabonding that I got some perspective and realized that life is what you make of it, carpe diem and all that.  I decided to apply to do my masters at the LSE and was consequently devastated when I was rejected. Failure can be debilitating, when I was 17 and failed my driver's licence I was an inconsolable wreck.  But for whatever reason, this time I became determined rather than desolate. After a year of honest reflection and self-improvement I tried again.

The way I see it, it's not the eventual success which makes us, but how we manage failure and rejection.  When hitting your head on a brick wall you have two options - the first (and most popular choice) is to stop and just walk away.  The second, (and more difficult option) is to step back from the wall, examine it's construction and devise a method to scale it or bring it down.  I admit that the first option is a more "zen" approach and there will be plenty of times when walking away is an appropriate course (and indeed an important countervailing lesson!).  But when that damn wall needs to go, it's just gotta go.

So what can we do to conquer our debilitating fear of rejection? One school of thought suggests that you can train yourself to handle rejection and failure better by regularly exposing yourself to situations where you're guaranteed to fail - literally seeking situations where it is impossible to succeed so you develop an immunity.  Then when it really matters, you won't care because you fail all the time.  Flood your life with little failures and smash the tyranny of fear.  

Let's face it, it's hard to beat a person that doesn't give up.