My son fell on the playground today.
He was trying to climb up some bars that were a little too
far apart and his grip was just a little too weak, so he slipped and fell off
onto his back.
“It’s okay,” I said, dusting him off, “I’m here. You got a
little bruised, huh? Next time you’ll have to hold on tighter. Would you like
to try again?”
When he successfully climbed the bars the second time he
turned around and flashed me a big smile.
Why don’t I fail like my son?
See, I had a job interview today. It was my second interview
with this company, and my first interview had tanked — I had no idea why they
wanted to try again. I was anxious and nervous and flustered and,
unsurprisingly, I didn’t do great the second time around either. After my
failure I was in a kind of angry, tear-filled stupor, asking myself why I was
so stupid, why I couldn’t control myself better, why did I even think I was
qualified for this job…It wasn’t pretty.
It’s only now — a few hours of anger and frustration and
depression later — that I noticed the inconsistencies in what I teach my son
and how I live my life.
I need to fail like I want my son to fail: with grace.
When I fail, I need to take a moment to get my bearings back
and remember that I am more than my failures.
I need to recognize what went wrong, and decide to do things
differently the next time around.
And as any cowgirl who’s fallen off her horse can tell you, I
need to not be afraid to try again.
Failure isn’t something to be ashamed of; it’s often a huge
step in the learning process. Abstractly, I know this. In real life, it’s a
whole lot harder to believe.
Maybe you failed at something today, but that doesn’t mean
you’ve permanently failed. Job interviews are hard. Being patient with your
child when they’re throwing a tantrum in the middle of a store is hard. Running
a home and raising children and taking care of yourself all at the same time is
hard. And because of the inherent difficulty of these tasks, there will be
times when you fail. But you are not a failure.
We need to teach our kids how to fail well. Not just through
how we react to their failures, but also through how we react to our own.
So I’m going to try and be better. I’m going to try to fail
like I want my son to fail. And hey, I might fail a few times in my attempts at
failing well! But I won’t stop trying.
My ego took a tumble today.
And now I know what to work on next time.
