Failing Gloriously – Manifesto Sneak Peek
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Photo courtesy – Dewin Anguas Barnette
Training A Trickster, Chris Beaulieu
Here’s an excerpt from my upcoming manifesto Creatively Indepedent: Living Life on Your Terms with Play, Community and Awareness.
Rhythm: Failing Gloriously
The Dreaded “F” Word
Failing is such a dreaded word, for most. The big scarlet “F” is what we were trained in school to avoid at all costs. It’s become attached to fear so tightly that the potential for failure might in fact be exactly like a ravenous lion lurking in the bushes to our amygdala.
But it’s not. Not really.
Failure to choose the edible berry from the poisonous one is amygdala territory. Failure to record a song you wrote instead of a cover everyone knows is independence territory.
Failure is inevitable. There’s no escaping it. Even playing it safe, flying under the radar and holding your breath is failing. Failing to live! So, when you fail, and we all fail constantly,
FAIL GLORIOUSLY.
Fail with neon lights blinking around the project. Fail with the brightest colors on and all the microphones pointed at you. Fail with the loudest gut laugh possible. Fail with no regrets. Fail in a delightful and wonderful way. Fail in a way that is marked by great beauty or splendor. Fail in a way that is possessing or deserving glory.
FAIL GLORIOUSLY
Without the possibility of failure, nothing new can be discovered or accomplished.
Without the acceptance or, dare I say, eagerness to shoot so high that you will most likely fail, nothing new will come.
Every failure, when done gloriously, has jewels of success inside it. I’m not saying this in a fluffy “at least you tried” kind of way. It’s that and much more. The success lies in the:
- Awareness of you and your surroundings; everything that’s influencing this attempt.
- Commitment to your process.
- Ownership of why and how you are doing the thing.
- High Stakes you set, ensuring a glorious attempt, one way or the other.
- Leadership of going out in to the world full-throttle.
- Play of trying something unsure on for size just for the adventure of it.
- Taking the RISK.
- Connection to the project, your passion and the tribe you’re doing it with/for.
- Intentional focus on what you want regardless of the success or failure.
- Divergent Thinking, another possibility, tried and tested.
- Vulnerability of doing all of the above without the certainty of favorable outcome.
- Self Observation that this failure did not kill you. Take note, Amygdala.
- Glorious Failure! There’s no way you could have failed any better! Or could you?
Self–Observe and try again. Get a running start.