Embracing Failure
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I used to be someone who beat myself up for every fault, even ones that no one else knew about. There was a compulsion to be the best, the brightest, the most admirable person I could be, and when I did something that interfered with that perception, I would dwell on it for years.
When I was about six, we were hiking, and we had a picnic lunch in a hut in the mountains. Part of my lunch was an apple, and after I ate the apple, I threw it away…but in a can that was labelled “recycling: cans and bottles only.” When I realized my mistake, I was horrified, and I realized that I should fish my apple core out and find a better place to put it. But the can was nearly as tall as I was, and it was filled with smelly trash and sharp edges. So I walked away. I am now forty-four years old, and I still remember that moment with perfect clarity. Most especially, I remember the feeling of shame that enveloped me. All over an apple core that I put in the wrong bin.
It was important to me, in that moment, to do the right thing—to put the apple core in the right bin. But it was somehow more important to me that no one know that I had done the wrong thing. So I kept this fault secret. If I had been able to embrace the fault, I would have been able to go to my parents, or to one of the people who worked at the hut. I’m certain that I could have explained my mistake, they would have said, ‘no big deal,’ and I would have skipped on my merry way.
Embracing our faults means admitting to them, telling people about them. To do this, we have to know in our bones that this evidence of our imperfection won’t keep people from loving and respecting us. We have to trust that we won’t be judged harshly. And when we are judged harshly, which we might be, we have to be able to keep that judgment from lodging in our deep sense of self. This is tricky stuff.
A common response to failure is to make excuses—blame the failure on other people’s actions, or circumstances beyond your control. The dog ate my homework. My idiot boss kept talking about golf and the potential client was so irritated, she didn’t really even see my fantastic proposal.
This is counter-productive, though it’s very human. When we tell ourselves, “Well, I would have succeeded, but all this other stuff got in my way,” we give away our power.
Another common response is to over-react. “I can’t do anything right. I always mess up when it really counts.” So we give up our power again, and stop trying. We give in to a sense of learned helplessness.
A healthy response to failure is to find a balance between these extremes—to accept that we’re supposed to fail. It’s a normal part of life.
In reality, we fail for a variety of reasons, some internal, some external. When there is no fear or shame associated with failure, it’s easier to figure out which mistakes we might have made, and what we might want to do differently the next time. We accept the things we have no control over, and focus on the things that we can change.
My first truly spectacular failure occurred in my first paid ministry job. I had a newborn and a two-year-old, and to be frank, I was terrified by the prospect of staying home with them. So I took a job as the assistant minister to families. The congregation hadn’t done their homework. The job wasn’t well-defined or well-thought-out; I didn’t even have an office or a desk. Meanwhile, I had no real experience in religious education ministry, and yet I was supposed to completely reimagine and redesign their program, all in twenty hours a week.
The longer I was there, the more out of my depth I felt. I did some really crappy ministry. Also some good stuff. But the best thing that I did in that job was to decide to resign. Suddenly, the growing sense of anxiety and overwhelm melted away, and I was able to be present to myself and the congregation in a much healthier way.
I learned what it felt like to fail spectacularly—which made me better able to minister to folks who had lost their jobs or who were struggling with failures of their own. I learned how important it was to look for a good fit, and not assume that smart people of good will can make anything work. I learned a lot about myself, my strengths and weaknesses. And I faced my fear of stay-at-home-mothering and went on to three and a half years of being there for my kids when they were little.
Embracing failure as a natural part of life helps us weather the inevitable ups and downs. When we reject the “success at all costs” model and embrace a more realistic, “you win some, you lose some” outlook, we don’t waste precious time and energy on situations or challenges that aren’t really ours to fix or face. When we embrace failure, it allows us to find ourselves at the end of the day, happy to be alive, secure in the knowledge that whatever our track record, we are successful human beings, worthy of love and able to love others in all their faults and failures.
Elizabeth graduated from Yale University in 1992, with a BA in History (focus on Soviet and East European studies).She received her M. Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry in 1999 (her older son, Sam, was born just before she finished her course work).In May of 2019, she received a Doctor in Divinity through a joint program between Seattle University and San Francisco Theological Seminary.Her dissertation focused on managing media-induced secondary trauma in congregations.
In her spare time, Elizabeth loves to hike, ski, knit and write poetry.She swims with a Masters team three mornings a week and is a voracious reader.Her musical tastes run to close harmonies and bluegrass, and one of her favorite ways to spend an evening is to jam with friends.
- Embracing Failure - June 1, 2020
- Pancakes and Process Theology - April 1, 2014
