How to Confront Failure and Live Authentically
A few years ago, I made a new year’s resolution to stop being an artist.
It had been a youthful dream that ended in self-sabotage and the awful realization that I not only wasn’t skilled enough to survive in such a competitive industry—my lack of skill was entirely my own fault. I had neither the drive nor the ambition to make my fever dream a reality.
But that night I wasn’t feeling like a failure anymore. The resolution was the final step to escaping the long-dead dream; by declaring that I was no longer artist I now had the freedom to move forward and nurture other, more fulfilling passions.
When I graduated college with a degree in studio art, I was terrified. I’d stumbled through my final year balancing unnecessary social drama with a too-heavy course load and in the chaos had neglected to apply to graduate school, internships, or anything else that could help me pursue my career as an illustrator. I had a degree but no resources, and truthfully no inspiration either.
In a last-ditch effort, I put myself out there in the freelance circuit, which won me a commission to illustrate a self-published children’s book. The experience heartened me and gave me a bit of hope, enough that I ignored how much I loathed the process of producing so much art. It was physically painful, horribly boring, and though the final results were of good quality, I hated it.
The windfall was predictably temporary and instead of moving on to graduate school or getting hired by Nickelodeon to do art for the next Avatar: The Last Airbender, I found myself working nights in a retail job. It was here that I reached my lowest point. I had failed in so many ways, in my career, my social life, my mental health, and no longer had a clear trajectory for how I wanted to live as an adult.
My darkness was complete and felt overwhelmingly final. I was incapable of thriving, incapable of healing, incapable of being anything but a reclusive, half-hearted pagan with no aspirations.
But slowly, miraculously time softened those devastating feelings. After a couple years of stumbling through debilitating sadness, I finally reached a point that I could fully accept and embrace the fact that I had failed.
I’ve since realized that we fear failure even more than we love success. With each accomplishment there’s always this little voice telling us “you could have done better” or “you should be doing something else.” In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy you call these negative cognitions: negative thoughts and beliefs following an experience which serve to limit current functioning.
And that was the crux of my problem for almost 20 years. No matter how much I succeeded and how far I progressed, regardless of my degree, my experiences, the obstacles I had overcome and the battles I won, I still saw myself as a failure because I didn’t fulfill that one goal.
Declaring myself no longer an artist was life changing. Almost immediately I began writing—not just directionless writing that I’d done before, but serious writing. I was already working professionally as a part-time editor, but now I threw myself into creative projects. Several years later this has culminated in the completion of my first novel.
I failed, and by embracing and accepting that failure rather than wallowing it or fearing it, I found a new path that had been available to me all along.
All of us at some point will encounter failure. Whether it’s a bad mark on a test, a missed job opportunity, or something bigger like a failed marriage or the end of a career, the failure will hurt and leave you with scary questions. “Will I be okay?” “What if I never succeed again?”
If we let that fear control us, if we tip toe forward to avoid falling off a cliff that may not even be there, then we’ll never get anywhere. Like the Fool Card in tarot, sometimes we have to take a leap of blind faith onto a new path and accept the risk that comes with it.
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