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As you may already know, failure is inevitable. I’m sure by the time you’re reading this you’ve done it many times. What if, instead of dreading it, fearing it with all your might, you practiced embracing it? Thinking of it as an experiment.

If you’re anything like me you may feel as though you would rather do anything than make a bad first impression, say something you didn’t mean, or park in the wrong spot. I’m not sure where exactly the idea of perfectionism came from but growing up it sounded to me as though it was a trait you wanted to have. Like you were just a little more on it if you would do anything to get something done in a perfect manner without wasting time failing. Perfectionism was what I thought was those kids in class who always got A’s or were great at sports because they had a knack for hard work and determination that would never fail them if they considered themselves a “perfectionist”. Then I realized that this wasn’t the case at all. I bet some of you may have already gotten this concept early on in life and for that I am happy for you…it took me a while to grasp and I still am working to abolish it in my mind.

Perfectionism isn’t a glamorous adjective but perhaps one of the most detrimental ways of thinking and acting you could have. For me perfectionism was image focused, it was more about how I looked doing something than it was me actually doing a good job or really caring about my work. In school it was easy to pretend everything was going well if I could just look the part. I desperately tried to look perfect, act perfect, dress perfect. I even got that feedback from the people around me and it helped fuel my perfectionism. Then, it turned into me quitting things because I messed up. I quit my first attempt at a sport, volleyball in middle school because I was too afraid of letting my team down. Even though I really liked playing I became crippled by the thought of making people angry if I messed up. I absolutely loved theatre ever since I was in elementary. I performed in every play I could until my 6th grade year when I starred in Sleeping Beauty, after a small stage mishap and forgetting a couple lines. I made a vow to myself to never be in a play again even though I loved it. I continued to take theatre classes up until high school but I decided I wasn’t perfect enough to do another big school play, so I didn’t my fear of messing up again stopped me. I gave up because I thought I had to be perfect in order to participate.

Thinking back at these very strong vows I made to myself when I was so young, pains me. What I didn’t see at the time was that my idea of myself being “perfect” was actually me not taking risks to do the things I cared about because of my crippling fear of failure, I gave up instead of trying again. I confused messing up with my identity and felt if I wasn’t perfect then I was unlovable, bad at things, stupid, and all the other self deprecation descriptors we give ourselves. As I’ve gotten older and learned more about the choices I make and why I choose them I have begun to see why failure, or messing up can be something I can tell myself a different story about. So, what if you take away the fear and replaced it with curiosity, with non-judgement? Decide that when you mess up it is a way to collect data to do better next time, take it as if it is a step closer to making it. Perhaps allow yourself to be messy about it. Purely experience the “failure” for what it is, an experience.

If you’re not failing in some ways you’re probably not trying. Putting yourself out there and living up to the values you want in life requires messing up. Risk is required to live authentically, in doing so you do open yourself up for criticism but also to many possibilities that you can’t have when you’re too afraid to try. Perhaps even the criticism is an opportunity to get better or to practice not allowing others to tear down your self worth, like water off a duck’s back. Learn to be ok with being a beginner, it may serve you much more than having the expectation that you have to be perfect or the best or what ever else you think you “should” be.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few. -Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind : Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice’ Shunryu Suzuki

I’ve come up with a list of 5 things to fail at to help you see a few reasons why it is an important and dare I say a great thing to fail.

1. A relationship: A failed relationship can be incredibly painful, but it can be an important way to learn about yourself, what you want in life, and a reason to choose you. Whether it is a friendship or romantic, failing at a relationships forces you to redirect where your life can go and re orient possibility in your life.
2. A job: If we never fail at a job or quit when we realize something isn’t for us, in some capacity we may end up staying somewhere for too long. Or we don’t get the chance to grow into something better meant for us because we were too afraid to reach out on a limb a try something that really excites us.
3. Something you created:Make something and let it be trash. A piece of art, a piece of writing, pottery. Sometimes I’ll paint something and hate it, over time I start to feel less attached to my emotions about it. I often end up really loving a piece because I sat with it and got to know it for what it is and even grow to appreciate its imperfection. We can also practice this with other things in life. Try sitting with something you’ve messed up, view it from outside yourself, at the end of the day it probably isn’t as bad as your judgement of it is.
4. A first date: I love this one because if you go into a date without so much seriousness attached to it and let yourself have fun, and get to know someone new, you may find a new reason to appreciate dating.
5. A new hobby: Try a new hobby and let yourself be bad at it. I imagine that learning a new craft or hobby will have a learning curve. For instance, I recently got an espresso machine for Christmas and I have been so looking forward to learning how to make latte art, and damn I suck at it. But that’s ok because I have never done it before, how can I expect to be perfect at it ? Good things take time, and patience.

I hope this may have offered some insight into how you can choose to think about failing and use it to your advantage. At the end of the day, try not to take yourself so seriously. We have so much more opportunity for growth when we allow ourselves to mess up. It may not feel like it in the moment but it is possible to change your mind about failing. You are so much more capable than you think, and messing up in life is another way we can show ourselves how to try again and get better. All you have to do is show up, I bet you will surprise yourself.

Below is a list of readings that I am sure will change your life or at the very least give you a new perspective or perhaps the push you need to keep going strong! Thrift Books is great place to buy these used as well as WOB or “world of books”. Don’t forget your local library may also have some of these! Happy reading 🙂

The courage to be disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga : This book changed my whole perspective of life and is one I will come back to time and time again. Trust me, this is a must read.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: Whether you are a writer or not this book is sure to get you going. Lamott beautifully leads you peacefully to a deeper awareness of yourself and what is going on around you. This book left me intentionally observant of life itself, the possibility of stories all around me and sparked my imagination.

Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday: A practical guide for those of us who want a devotional style reading. Straight to the point entries for everyday of the year with practical Stoic practices and thoughts you can implement in everyday life.

The measure of my days by Florida Scott- Maxwell: An incredible reminder to bring us back to the gratitude we can have now as well as the beauty and joy we choose to see as we get older. This is a short read but may stop you in your tracks and get you to reflect deeply on life’s many pleasures richer with every passing day.

How to live by Derek Sivers: Another quick and easy read with concepts that will sit you down and have you go on a journey of deep contemplation. A short chapter a day will fill you up and have you inspired to live by your own accord as well as give you reasons to think of the many other possible ways to live. This book is a joy and a great tool for those of us struggling to know what we want our lives to look like.

Leap First by Seth Godin: Absolutely necessary if you need practical ways of thought to help you on your journey to create something you’ve been wanting to start or to give you a nudge in the right direction. This is available as an audio book as well and is great to listen to when you want a helpful voice motivating you on your merry way.

The art of mindful birdwatching by Claire Thompson: On a different note than those above. This book is a practical guide to the delightful hobby of bird watching and using it as a way to practice mindfulness. This book inspires you to get outside, appreciate nature and remember why we are all connected. This is a great book if you are in need of a reason to get up and outside and to appreciate the great example of Mother Earth who we so desperately need to reconnect with.

Imagine this, you wake up in a world out in a field somewhere, no one in sight. You look around and realize you are alone. You wander, looking at the trees, grass and angular clouds, you see a bee or two and before you know it night time begins to fall. You hear groaning and ticking, you have the feeling that you need to hide. But how? You attempt to dig yourself a hole to hide in and you discover that every block you destroy can be used again, taking the blocks of dirt you collected you build yourself a little hut. Slowly you learn the things you can make bit by bit to create something for yourself to expand and explore your world . Anything is possible.

Now I will spare you from too many more details of the game given you’ve either already played or you haven’t and you’re wondering where this is going. I am using this game as an example of the great journey into creating, sustaining, and coming back to your creative work.

I never played the game when I was younger and now in my adult years after watching the Minecraft movie with my nephew, and my boyfriend telling me how much fun he had playing when he was younger we decided we would do a trial run. That trial run turned into a very needed lesson for me.

Everything in the game you can do isn’t told to you, you have to explore and try things to figure it out or research how to. Sound familiar? Like life, we do not receive a handbook on how to, it is all up to us as you may already know…

After playing the game for almost a year since, I find it to be a useful tool in my life to take the seriousness out of how I view creating as well as life itself. It helps me practice letting myself come up with things to do and small goals to go towards. I can see all my choices come together to help me make something. It shows me the breakdown of the process from the idea, to collecting materials, to the application of the elements coming together. It helps me practice failing and letting that be part of the fun.

Like life, Minecraft shares some crucial lessons.

1. Life is what you make it. Go big, go small, it’s up to you. You can explore or you can develop your own world right where you are.
2. You can create something if all you have is your own hands to start. Nothing holds you back from this but you. If you have something you really care about expressing you will find a way to make it happen.
3. There are no right answers. You can take the creative way or the survival way, or both. And you can change your mind at any time.
4. It’s all not that serious. Play around, try something. Allow yourself to try and fail. Show yourself you can. You win even if you lose, if you choose to view the process and inevitable failure as necessary. Even if you don’t get where you think you will, when you keep moving forward you run into many new and exciting things you can’t make up for yourself. Which is part of the profound joys as well as sorrows of life. Showing up in itself is worth it, if you choose to believe so.

If you choose to revisit the game or sit with these ideas, I think there is the potential to bring some truly profound takeaways with you into your own world.

Life is what you make it, life is what you make IN it, life is what you make inside yourself. Maybe you could see where an idea takes you for the fun of it, for the fail of it. Perhaps you will discover much more than you thought. Maybe an entire world’s worth.

Sometimes we feel we aren’t in the right place, with the right people, or doing the things we want for ourselves. We suppress our reasons to express ourselves and stop creating. Soon enough we can find ourselves drained, burnt out, and hopeless. We lose the desire to create because we’ve lost sight of the why. We get stuck in our limiting beliefs because it all doesn’t look or feel the way we thought it would, come to find out things rarely go the way we thought. We stop trying because sometimes it feels like every direction is a dead end. We go blind to the beauty of who we are and the joy we can have being in our bodies and expressing what we have inside dying to get out.

It is so easy to find a million excuses not to create. We tell ourselves I don’t have the time, I am not good enough, I don’t have the right equipment and so on. I bet that one of these is part of the story you have told yourself before. No matter what the story you tell yourself is, you are the narrator. The only one that is listening to your internal dialogue is you. It also takes you to tell yourself a different one.

You don’t need to be the best writer to write, the best crocheter to crochet, or the best singer to sing. Because, as you know there will always be someone “better” than you which is only based off your judgment of ‘better’ and ‘best’. The book, Leap First: Creating work that matters by Seth Godin touches on this with a deep relatability. It is an easy read and well worth the well of wisdom and actionable steps to help you move forward.

I think it is so easy to hold back because of the expectations you have of how you want something to turn out. What if instead of thinking about how you want the end result to be that you bring it back to your why? This could be as simple continuing to make something because you enjoy the process which I hope is why you create anything in the first place. If it is because of the “end result ” then I’m afraid you will miss the point. The point being, to make something meaningful to you. The rest is out of your control.

At the end of the day what stops us from creating is well, us. The only way to break through the barrier is to keep going. Set small goals for yourself, take breaks, create a specific time to put towards what you’re making, do the work everyday. Eventually something will grow and perhaps flourish into something you never knew was possible because you let go of the expectations, you stopped comparing, you focused on what you can offer to your creation and you committed yourself to it no matter what the outcome. No matter how perfect, or great you wanted it to be. When the work is done, you do it again.

Whether you are a writer, thrifter, painter, coder, engineer, gardener,  the list goes on and on. You my friend, surely have something you want to create, put out there, or develop within yourself so that you may go out into the world and ‘share the oranges’ you have as well as maybe inspire others to share theirs. What it actually looks like to share your oranges and what the intention of this place is, is to encourage you to hone your craft whether it be internal or external. This is a place to practice the art of trying, playing, starting, and continuing a project you have for yourself. I hope to offer practical actions, intentional ways of thought, as well as things you can do for yourself in your everyday life to lift you up and send you out with confidence and excitement. 

“ There is an artist imprisoned in each one of us. Let him/her loose to spread joy everywhere.” -Bertrand Russel

Now what