Hello,
My name is Kieran and I'm an artist and creative mentor and today I wanted to talk about looking at failure through a different lens.
We are brought up to want to encounter success in all our endeavours.
The aim is to produce outcomes in our favour and what we think of as victories has a lot to do with what the outer world deems positive and symbolic of success.
We decide prior to our actions what an accomplishment will look like.
If we see it manifest in the way we have desired then it would be marked as something that turned out the way we wanted.
There is a focus on achievement and victory.
Anything that falls outside of that remit we may consider a failure and we are averse to failing.
We don't want it,
We don't like it and we try to stay away from it as much as possible.
Why is this?
Are we taking any setbacks or blocks as a reflection of us?
That if we do not progress in the preordained manner then we are flawed in some way and that we are not only experiencing failure but we ourselves are failures.
That is very personal and painful and so it makes sense that this is something we would avoid.
We are pleasure-seeking creatures and we do not want to do anything that might evoke negative feelings within ourselves.
Yet what if we shifted our perspective on the word failure?
After all it is an inevitable consequence of living a full life.
We are not meant to be linear and create one success after the other.
What would that teach us?
How much contrast would that bring us?
Not much.
Would any achievement feel worthwhile if along the journey all you did was make the right move over and over again?
It would feel flat.
What failure does is stop us in our tracks and it shines a light on other options.
It makes us aware that there may be something we could be doing differently that would be a better choice for us.
It allows time for reflections and self-awareness.
It is like a pomegranate.
You open it up and it is bejewelled with ruby red fruits and abundance reigns.
There is so much to gain when you view failure from this angle.
You open it up and you take a look at all it has to offer.
I remember when I first embarked on my art career.
I would send out submission after submission to galleries and agents and I would receive a steady stream of rejections.
I felt like a failure and the art seemed like it was failing too.
I felt stuck in that space and it was only when I looked into this sense of defeat that I saw the fruit it was bearing for me.
The world opened up and I stopped looking for others to choose me and my art and I chose myself.
I decided I would share my art with the world without waiting for any gatekeeper to allow me into theirs and I would let the people that resonated with my art connect with me directly.
Out of what seemed like failure my own art business was born.
The greatest gift that could have come from me and my creativity.
Had I been accepted by a gallery or an agent I would have deemed that an overall success but I would not know where that path may have led and more to the point I was wasting precious time in outsourcing my art to others when I was fully able to create a platform for it myself.
If each time we encounter what looks like a setback,
A failing in some way and we always chose to look for the nectar that lives within it we may very well find that we are being made to evolve in more beneficial ways.
It is asking for our growth and for us to look at our circumstances in more innovative ways because ultimately this is what failure brings out in us.
Creative innovation.
We have to think outside the box,
We have to think again.
What we thought was a right path turns out to be a dead end.
We are required to reroute and instead of seeing this as a setback it gives us a chance to take a different journey,
See a different vista and maybe encounter a sense of strength and courage in ourselves that we had not yet met.
This fruit of failure comes bearing gifts for a future you cannot see.
Imagine if you could see failure as something to welcome and that it ignited a curiosity and a desire to explore knowing that it held in its hands something more powerful intended just for you.
The following journal prompts are here to encourage you to view your past failures in a new light and to discover a new perspective of the word.
Think back to an experience you encountered that you deemed to be a failure.
You are allowed to feel all the feelings of disappointment,
Rejection and any other emotion that this experience elicited.
Once you have acknowledged how you felt I want you to get curious.
Can you look a little more deeply and write down anything that could be deemed as a positive that came out of that situation?
If you didn't achieve what you set out to and you received another outcome,
In what ways was this better and more beneficial to you than your original desire?
If you welcome failure instead of fearing it,
What would that mean for your life choices?
What freedoms would you experience if failure became an ally in your life?
What have personal failures taught you in your life that have been beneficial in the long run?
Finally,
Could you replace the word failure in your mind with a word that resonates with you more?
Example,
Curiosity,
Reflection,
Exploration,
Adventure.
We live in a dichotomous world and it is only with this contrast of light and dark,
Success and failure,
That we are able to have deep and meaningful experiences.
If everything is welcome,
Then fear becomes less and less of an operating force in your life.
You are free to venture into new realms and explore new possibilities which are expansive and more aligned with you as a whole person.
