Only One Kind of True Failure
As I mentioned in an email a few weeks ago, I’m rereading Ryan Holiday’s book Ego is The Enemy. If you’re in the market for short chapters with punchy insights, I highly recommend it. Toward the end of the book, Holiday summarizes a main lesson we can learn from the ups and downs of various historical figures …
“The only real failure is abandoning your principles.” - Ryan Holiday
When I reflect on Ryan Holiday’s quote, it strikes me that I often fear failing at the wrong things.
I fear future outcomes of many things I can’t fully control. For example, this year I put several thousand dollars into forming an online program that has been slow to materialize. I fear that it might not get finished at all, that I don’t have what it takes to bring it to completion, that even if I did it wouldn’t find an audience, and that I wasted a large chunk of money. Much of this project’s slowness is on me, because I wasn’t really prepared for what I was getting into. I just did’t know what I didn’t know. But even if my attempt at an online course is a major flop, that isn’t truly failure - it’s just life.
The only real failure would be not living my values - if I let the ups and downs get to me and allow myself to act like a person I don’t want to be. That’s what I should be guarding against.
Even though there is uncertainty with my current project, I know that I am living my principles. Taking calculated risks in order to get outside of my comfort zone is in line with my principles. I want to push myself, I want to try new things. It’s my Ego that tells me that every risk I take should work out perfectly.
That’s just not reality. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. That process ins’t failure. It’s learning. It’s life. The thing that really matters is acting like my true self. Living in a way that prioritizes chatacter. Whether I reach a goal or miss it by a wide margin, a life of integrity is what I want to be remembered for and pass on to my kids. This actually feels way harder than accomplishing some concrete goal, because living your principles requires constant discernment and it never ends. There is no down time when it comes to living your principles. The moment you take your eye off your principles, that’s when you’re most likely to disregard them and do something truly reckless.
Everyone deals with fear of failure. It is so ubiquitous that it should be cliche. At this point in human history we should be so familiar with fear of failure that when it pops up we can chuckle to ourselves and think Oh, this old story again? But fear of failure is insidious. Every time it feels fresh and 100% reasonable. Even though the fact we are alive and breathing in this very moment is evidence that we have already overcome a multitude of self doubts. But we tend to forget this. We’re always on to worrying about the next thing we might fail at.
But what if we’re worrying about failing at the wrong things? What if the only real failure is when we abandon our principles?
For me, it puts things in perspective. It helps me be grateful for what I already have. And it helps me move through difficult circumstances with a little more resilience. Yes, your old friend Fear Of Failure will still talk to you occasionally. But maybe we can learn to laugh when he recycles the “You’re Not Good Enough” story for the millionth time. Perhaps instead we could learn to refocus on our guiding principles and protect them at all costs.
Maybe we can learn to understand what real failure looks like.
Happy to be in your corner,
Tom Page, LCPC
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