On Failure and Course Correction
Originally published on 2 February 2023
Failure is a part of life. Things won’t always go according to plan. Sometimes it’s a head-in-hand, embarrassing mistake and other times, it’s an epic fail. It’s what you do with failure that counts. You have to learn to develop an acceptance of failure in order to grow. You don’t give up on the first try, or the second, or even the third. Most failures can be viewed as a learning experience if you let them be.
My Fail
When I started writing this blog, it was shortly after I had decided that I was going to be taking a ‘sabbatical’ after ditching consultancy work and, as I put it, “to give myself the space for the first time in a decade to figure out my path and allow myself to dream again”. It has been the best 10 months of my life, except that one part went wrong. I went back to doing the consultancy work I had told myself was not what I wanted to do anymore. I failed.
Others might not see this as a failure, but I do. I wanted a radically different path for myself. Somewhere along the way, I had given up on dreaming about doing anything different. I had wrapped myself safely in my comfort zone. I could put it down to the Long Covid and viewing myself as being unable to do anything else but what I already knew, but this would be a cop-out. I was playing it safe and not exploring my full potential.
I kept telling myself that things were different this time. I was starting a proper business, and it was going to be more than what I had set out to do at the beginning of the year. I was staying within my comfort zone and just dressing it up differently. So many of us do that when we take a new job opportunity or are offered a new role in the same organisation. We think things are going to be different, but they aren’t.
I knew I wasn’t happy with the choice I had made and that if I continued down this path, it was going to continue to be a failure. Ryan Holiday has a chapter in The Obstacle is the Way on ‘Iteration’. He discusses how failure is a way to learn and improve.
Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new. It’s the preceding feature of nearly all successes. There’s nothing shameful about being wrong, about changing course. Each time it happens we have new options. Problems become opportunities. (p. 82)
If you learn to think of failure as an opportunity to grow or change then it moves from the negative column to the positive. He ends the chapter with some straightforward advice:
…the world is telling you something with each and every failure and action. It’s feedback – giving you precise instructions on how to improve, it’s trying to wake you up from your cluelessness. It’s trying to teach you something. Listen. (p. 85-86)
So, I started listening.
My Course Correction
I had been applying two concepts from Dorie Clark’s book The Long Game – ‘optimise for interesting’ and ‘20% time’. The ‘20% time’ speaks to what you are doing with 20% of your time that may lead somewhere – or nowhere – but is a project that you’re passionate about. My 20% time was really closer to 30% time, then eventually 40% time, and it was learning about self-development and sharing that knowledge with others. ‘Alex the Generalist’ was starting to find a bit of a specialisation that wasn’t my career but that was bringing far more contentment than the same shit, different day that I had been doing for over a decade.
By late October, I had written down as part of my 10-Year Vision: become an executive coach. I didn’t share this with anyone. Fast forward to December and I had one of my first discovery calls with my coach. We started discussing what would make me feel fulfilled in my career, and she asked me, have you ever considered coaching? I started tearing up because someone articulated the new path that I wanted for myself which I hadn’t been brave enough to tell anyone else.
After that call, I went into action and started on my new path. Next week, I will have a shiny certificate to go with that new path.
Staying on Course
It is never too late to course-correct or break a cycle. What I was not listening to when I was failing in my endeavours to find a new career path was that I was actually going through several iterations of course-correcting. I was just not staying on course. This is perhaps the most difficult part of any course correction – whether it be a new habit or any other change you’re making in your life.
Again, failure will be a part of the process. But you have to pick yourself back up and keep going.
This marks the end of an era for the Alex the Generalist blog. Alexandra the Coach is available for sessions from mid-February, and all posts will be on the new website launching soon.
Alex the Generalist
