I have been thinking a lot about how Facebook breeds a sense of ever-present success, something I have fallen victim to as well. The “look at my awesome project” or #humblebrag posts are easy, and intoxicating – they help us both reflect satisfaction and garner praise. They share what we want to show – success, confidence, and progress. Well I am going to pass on that today, and say something I have been thinking a lot about.
I have been struggling with some ideas I have been working on that are not successful. I have missed some opportunities I thought were achievable, and I have made mistakes that have resulted in outcomes that failed to meet my goals. And I have had a sense that I have been overly optimistic about the chances of success, when the real indicators of failure were visible but not seen.
Yes, lots of things are going great, and lots of things are in the process of getting better. But some things just aren’t working – and they need to be rethought and reworked. I don’t buy the whole “let’s celebrate failure” thing – ’cause that’s not what I want to celebrate. But I do want to acknowledge it and find a way to be ok with it. Because when I fail to acknowledge things aren’t working, I fail to internalize the sense of self-limitation, I fail to appreciate the hard work its going to take succeed, and I fail to value the help of others that is necessary to compensate for my weaknesses. I realize it’s not the success that is going to make me stronger – not in any real sense. It’s the failures that will. So here’s to getting stronger…
Seth Cohen is a Senior Director at the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.
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In the philanthropy field, this has been aa important motif for a few years. The Case Foundation goes so far as to make “failure” almost a mission. A couple of additional points might help: 1. learning from failure requires a kind of documentation rarely supported by us on the Funder side. 2. Program staff within foundations are rarely rewarded for failure so it is challenging for program professionals to comfortably publicize them: 3. We need to recognize that grantees often feel legitimately intimidated to state their failures. When these 3 matters are addressed it will allow more openness about what success, failure, and most typically, something in between really means
Shalom All,
“If you fail, fail fast.” Google
“It’s easier to eat crow while it’s still warm.” Dan Heist
“You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.” Dr. Phil
Biv’racha,
Jordan