Nov 19, 2013

Posted by | 4 Comments

Public Failure

Public Failure

Failing happens to us all, and can often lead to other successes and wins that we wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. Often I will make little agreements with myself about efforts I wish to take, habits I wish to break, or new ideas I wish to embark upon, only to later completely forget about them or lack motivation to act. I am sure I am not the only one who does this. Yes, these are failures, but they are individual, and nothing compared to that which can be easily seen and inspected by others: public failure.

I am here today to confess my own failure, and share that the sense of it and the public nature of it has kept me a bit stuck in the area of blogging the last couple of weeks. This post is my attempt to remedy this momentary blip in consistency, by admitting the truth: I failed, and then I tried to hide from it.

My 21-day gratitude challenge was apparently too challenging for me to keep up with, for after skipping two days the weekend of the talent show, I just could not bring myself to go back and dive in. It was as if those two days represented the totality of my failure: I said I would be consistent, and yet here are these two days that proved that I wasn’t. I even considered pretending, and posting as though I didn’t fail, changing the dates on the posts to the past. No one would know, right? Thankfully, I couldn’t even force myself to do that.

Now, over a week later, I am ready to look my failure in the face, and to share its existence with others. Ironically, the failure was not in forgetting to be grateful; I have had amazing days filled with moments filled with gratitude on many levels each day. No, the failure was in following the prescribed formula, and fulfilling the daily ritual of typing out said gratitude and sharing it with the world. This matches a pattern of mine: resist conformity. An area I am always seeking balance in!

So today, I express gratitude for my failure, and for my willingness to finally look right at it instead of skirt around and pretend I didn’t fail. I am thankful that I resisted the urge to delete any evidence of my acceptance of the challenge in hopes fewer people would notice the fail. My heart explodes with gratitude for my ability to be aware of my own shit, and to learn from even the most uncomfortable of situations.

I have decided to let myself off the hook for the challenge, at least as far as posting daily and sharing it across social media and mestarr.com goes. Maybe I was too attached to it being “the thing” that brought me more traffic, attention, or followers. Perhaps I added a bit too much zest into my announcing to world how ready I was to follow a program when I hadn’t even checked in with myself to see if I was willing to follow through. And now that I have confessed my failure, I can get back to posting as a normal human being, instead of some super-hero that does everything exactly as I think I “should.” Whew – I feel so much better now!

  1. Beautiful. I can relate to much too much of this, especially being a non-conformist. Thank you.

    • Thank you so much for your comment, Billie! Yes, being a non-conformist can definitely feel like a bite in the ass sometimes, as well as be a rewarding treasure. I’m glad you resonated with my experience. 🙂

  2. I love this post…it’s always nice to succeed at a project, but also teaches us sooo much about ourselves when we fail. And to publicly admit failure is so incredibly freeing!

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