A taxonomy of personal failure

Necessary failures:

• things you weren’t ready to let go of, that needed to be released,

• things you were striving for, but didn’t need,

• things that were going in the wrong direction, and couldn’t turn back,

• those heartbreaking truths you didn’t feel ready to face,

• things that needed to be broken apart before you could put them back together,

• “if you intend to rise from the ashes, first you have to burn”,

• life-saving failures.

If at first you don’t succeed; experimental failures:

• failures on purpose, to test an assumption,

• fast, frequent failures as a method of learning,

• worthy efforts that nonetheless didn’t create results,

• each of Edison’s “10,000 ways that won’t work”,

• the beautiful long shots you were betting everything on,

• the calculated risks that were worth it for the possibility of success,

• the attempt that didn’t quite pan out, but might be worth another try.

Dumb failures:

• lessons you’d already learned,

• predictable defeats,

• those things you never really wanted, that should have been on your to-don’t list,

• patterns of failure that you don’t learn from,

• the failure to trust your instincts; to accept your own wisdom.

The missed opportunity of failing to be fully present.

Surface failures that cover deeper failures:

• dropping balls because you’re too busy, because you overcommitted, because you forgot to take your own needs seriously,

• miscommunication that talks past a deeper conflict that has never been resolved,

• failing by default through not really trying, because of fearing failure.

& those things that can feel like failures, but aren’t:

• imperfect offerings that are good enough for now,

• awkwardness that is human and charming,

• a heart that’s too wide open.

(For my friends at Fail Club. A work in progress.)