I Failed Today…

Have you ever thought about what it means to be a failure? Like during those times when you feel like a failure or feel like you are failing at a certain aspect of life, what does that mean in the grand scheme of life?

When I look up the definition of failure, there are 3 things listed.
1. Lack of success. This is a basic definition. Success is the inverse of failure, so it makes sense as a definition. However, who defines success? If we are looking at a math problem, I suppose success is finding the right answer. That’s black and white though. If you say you are failing at parenting, for example, how do you define success? My point is that we often set our own expectations for what success means.
2. The omission of expected or required action. I love this one because it uses the word “expected” within it. To my point earlier, you set the expectation.
3. The action or state of not functioning. This definition is the one used in the medical community. As health care workers, when we talk about heart failure or total organ failure, we mean that parts of the body are just blatantly not functioning in the way they were designed to. This is the definition used in the mechanical world too. However, I think that it is valid in life. Back to the example before, to fail at parenting, one would simply have to not function in any capacity as a parent.

I have a friend who has been struggling. No, this is not one of those “asking for a friend” things. I am writing about all of this with her permission. To make a long story incredibly short, we had a lengthy text exchange a little over a week ago that was full of negative self-talk and “I feel like a failure” from her. The whole thing made me incredibly sad and I got defensive. I was defending her to her, in a way. It ultimately came down to me saying “STOP BEING ABUSIVE TO YOURSELF!” After me being a little harsh with her, we started getting to the root of the issue, which was ultimately that her self esteem was in a tough place and that she wanted to get back to eating healthier, living a healthier lifestyle, etc.

We set these incredibly high expectations for ourselves based on the picture perfect lives we see others leading. What you see on social media isn’t real. You might see a picture-perfect family or a mom you assume is perfect, but I can guarantee you that the perfect family has skeletons and that perfect mom has days where she wants to run away from her family too. This is life. It’s normal to feel that way sometimes. Its normal to have bad days. This doesn’t make you a failure.

I am really trying, in my own life, to look at things that I once viewed as failures as opportunities now. Simple things like instead of viewing not getting a job I applied for as a failure, maybe it was an opportunity to improve my resume’ or practice my interviewing skills. In the gym, if I fail a lift, I look at it as an opportunity to work on my accessory strength.

In the bigger life things, like marriage for example, I am also trying to evaluate my own expectations of myself. What are they based on? Are they reasonable? If I mess something up in my marriage, its really an opportunity to talk through it and hopefully gain a deeper understanding of one another.

Bottom line is that life isn’t easy. It is even harder if we are walking around calling ourselves failures. If you can recognize when things aren’t going how you’d hoped and start making plans for growth from that, there is no failure. That means you made yourself better in that moment. Its okay to not be perfect, because guess what?! No one is.