Let's Talk Failure
And why it's ok
There’s a great scene in the romantic comedy 500-Days of Summer where there’s a live comparison for the main character Tom. On the left is Tom’s own expectations for what is happening in his life, and on the right is what is actual reality. The scene is a master class in story telling but if I’m being honest it often haunts me as it equates to my own life.
I often come upon moments where my own expectations of how a given situation is going to play out will vary differently from the reality of what happens. I have in the last month or so gone through a massive experience when it comes to the expectation versus reality paradox as I call it. I had an extremely long 10-month pitch for a project that I lost.
Over the course of the last year, I have been working on something that was going to be huge for me, my business, and take things to a whole new level. My expectations for what I could conceivably accomplish were going to dramatically get blown out of the water and I could, once this project came to fruition, expect my life to change dramatically. For some reasons I can’t get into the specifics right now, but a long story longer, after 10-months of negotiations for a project that I had signed on the dotted line for, unexpectedly the entire situation blew up a mere 4-days before the project was due to begin.
This has for lack of a better term, fucked me. Sort of.
Over the course of the last year I dreamt about the positives that this project would do for my me and my career and even my own confidence for myself as a person and an entrepreneur. I worked my ass off tirelessly and for no monetary compensation to get to the finish line to ultimately be denied and devastated. Not for lack of trying obviously, and certainly not for my lack of desire to achieve this, but nevertheless the project is now dead and I’m left reeling and trying to pick up the pieces of where and how things went wrong.
In some ways I’m still numb to the failure but encouraged by how I’ve continued to handle this situation.
The funny thing about expectations and reality is that even when they don’t align, sometimes you can end up in a net benefit position. It may be hard to see it in the immediate aftermath, but much like when Tom found out the woman he loved was engaged to another person, I’ve reached the reality portion of this story and am in a few ways excited about what the future may hold.
So often with failure we try our best to hide our disappointment, or not even acknowledge what has happened. We take the L, put our heads down, and move on to the next chapter. For me, I wish we were more forthcoming when we failed in life. Whether it’s relationships, or work, people can learn a lot from the commonality that is found in failure. We all have hopes and dreams and expectations of how our lives are meant to be, and we all have for better or worse, don’t always meet those expectations we’ve created for ourselves. It’s in these failures where I feel we ultimately learn the most about ourselves. It’s through these intense moments of defeat and despair where the real growth possibilities in life happen.
The cause for my glass half full mentality I have on this particular failure is simple, I believe that what’s meant for me will find me. And ultimately I won’t give up till all of my hopes and dreams come true.
As the sting of this failure dissipates, my own expectations for my next chapter increase and become clearer. It’s only when you start to process the reality of a situation where you can see the wonderful lesson for what it is, take it, and grow from it.
As I slowly move back into the groove of rebuilding and growing I’d be remiss if I didn’t take the chance to look back at all I’ve been able to accomplish alone these last 4-years and be excited for everything I have yet to try and succeed at. In the end, failure is simply life moving you into a new and yet to be determined direction. For me, I’ve moved beyond the initial sadness of the failure to the optimistic portion of this lesson and I for one am extremely excited for what comes next.