Two examples of being willing to fail when it increasingly feels as if modern life is stacked against us to build or practice resilience.
I play football with a bunch of blokes of a similar age who are all as keen as we are slow. The injury list is always long. Getting fourteen out every week for a 7-a-side is increasingly tough.
But the banter is high. The laughs are loud. Mistakes are ruthlessly highlighted.
When I blasted a shot over the 10-foot fence and into the woods behind one goal the laughter followed me into the darkness, “when that comes down it’ll have ice on”. I went on to miss two more easy chances soon after.
But, with the score 3-3 after an hour of football I made one more lung-busting run forward, linked up with a teammate with a 1-2 and placed the ball calmly between the goalkeeper’s legs and into the net.
Ultimately a Tuesday night kickabout does not matter. Making mistakes and missing lots of chances to score doesn’t matter. But scoring the winner with seconds to go made me happy. If I hadn’t kept going despite the setbacks, I wouldn’t have been in the right position to score.
Also, this week I spent time with a senior leader of a global asset management firm. She had recently led a meeting of 900 (yes nine hundred) and had been given only 12 hours to prepare.
She admitted being nervous but said she knew she could do it because of years of leading much smaller meetings and learning from her mistakes along the way.
What about your next team meeting? If there is an opportunity to speak, will you?
Next time you get a chance to volunteer for something that will put you outside your comfort zone, will you?
Do you ever decide not to try, or not to prepare like you know you should, because that gives you an excuse when you fail?
As children we naturally try out new things and fail. Then try again and learn.
Research suggests that this rhythm of try- fail -repeat – succeed is being driven out of us as the world becomes more connected.
Better access to information makes it easier to measure ourselves against others so we now compare ourselves to people all over the world rather than with our next-door neighbour, someone from the next road or the next town’s school.
As a child I believed I was going to become a professional footballer. If I had compared myself with the whole world, I would have easily realised I didn’t have the talent, and I may have stopped playing football altogether unwilling to make (many) mistakes.
If I had then I wouldn’t have been beaten up after a match on Tooting Common in 2003 but also wouldn’t now be a UEFA qualified coach…and wouldn’t have scored that winner on Tuesday night.