I was an honor student in high school. Maybe you’ve figured that out by now. Not because I am amazing, but perhaps because I am amazingly detailed. Or at least, I try as hard as I can to be.
As a kid who grew up in a good home that faced its fair share of crisis, details became very important to me. The more details I was able to keep track of, at home and at school, the more I could keep things from falling apart. Even better, the greater chance I could succeed.
The thing about being an honor student though, is that you learn how to do things well. That is not a brag, bear with me for a moment. All your energies are focused on being on time for class, getting an A, and being accepted to the right college—doing what is expected of you is the main skill you learn. Everything you’re taught, you are taught with the aim of succeeding. The skill no one teaches you is
What to do if you fall.
So though I was the president of two student organizations, on the executive branch of the county youth congress, and regularly lead a coffee house event with my friends, there was one leadership skill I didn’t learn. One, none of the adults in my life ever thought to tell me about. One, no one told me in college, or modeled to me in my twenties.
No one ever taught me how to fail.
No one ever showed me how to recover from the shock of hitting the pavement. How to get over the stares of pity, or worse people looking away, when you’ve hit the ground. But most importantly,
No one ever taught me how to get back up.
Instead, I was taught to fear falling. To avoid failing at every possible cost. To bend myself to make others happy. To take small, calculable steps. To absolutely work hard, but to always play it safe. To definitely swing when I was up at bat, but never to swing for the fence—because, I might fail. I might mess up.
I was taught to fear falling. To avoid failing at every possible cost. To bend myself to make others happy. To take small, calculable steps.
I was taught it is better to play it safe. I think the adults in the life of my high school self—and even those I knew in my twenties—they were taught the same. That the path to success is calculable and safe. Slow, steady, and always heading up and to the right. Work hard, play by the rules, and you will get a gold star.
Only real life, really living life, involves some degree of failure. Some falling, a few good royal mistakes. And that is true even if you’re only trying to live a regular everyday life.
Those of us who have big, audacious dreams that keep us up at night, know what it is to look over the ledge of taking a chance. We know what it is to stand at the edge and wonder if we can jump far enough to make it to the other side without taking an embarrassing dive. Some of us walk up to that ledge over and over for years, always turning around because we worry, “What if I can’t make it?” Only our problem is not the possibility of failure. Our problem is,
No one has taught us how to get up if we fall.
Failure is so rarely talked about, that many of us grew up with the illusion that the truly successful people in the world never fail. Only the truth is, they’ve failed. They just haven’t told us about it.
Believing our heroes have never messed up, has messed with us. Because when we believe they’ve never failed, we think there is something wrong with us if and when we do. More importantly though, we’ve been left without an example of what it looks like to bravely and humbly rise after our fall. To believe we aren’t finished when everyone else is saying we are. To learn from our mistakes, and come back better than before.
Believing our heroes have never messed up, has messed with us. Because when we believe they’ve never failed, we think there is something wrong with us if and when we do.
Some say we can’t be what we don’t see. Only I am beginning to see that we learn just as effectively, perhaps more so, when we don’t have an option. You and I may be short on examples of people who have come back after failure. We may even have more reasons to walk away from the ledges of our dreams, than we do to take the leap. But perhaps we need to take a chance for more than just following our dreams.
Perhaps we need to fall.
Because there is no other way for us to learn how to get back up.
Have you ever failed? If so, how did you recover?
What risk are you afraid of taking because you don’t know how you’ll get back up?
Are you in the midst of making a decision? Contemplating a life change? If so, you may be interested in my FREE Making Changes Checklist that I give to all my email friends. Want your free copy? subscribe here.
Photo by Max Bender on Unsplash
