09/20/2024
The most important paradigm shift that I have become a proponent of when teaching students and artists of all ages, is the reframing of mistakes and failures as the exact goalposts we are seeking to reach in the course of our personal development.
In most work and social environments today, it is undoubtedly true that we fear the possibility of foible in our future. We have an avoidant relationship towards even the instantiation of failure. We react viscerally to the threat of failure and because of this, we avoid any conditions which might even allow for this deplorable experience. And so we find ourselves stunted, both creatively and productively, unable to find acceptable terra firma anywhere that we might consider valuable or challenging or inspiring.
We are all familiar with these “fear-of-failure environments”, which seem to be devoid of inner comfort yet rife with judgement and counterproductive self-talk. Unfortunately, we also know that progress towards anything of measure or importance is born only out of innumerate failures and discomforts. We can see that these “fear-of-failure environments” rely on a denial of this inherent truth. And thereby, we can see that our problem is our solution.
When coaching artists or students, I portend that mistakes can are actually logically understood to be the only pathway to progress. I find that within this paradigm, every mistake presents as an opportunity to correctly reinterpret a course to our goal, a goal that we know is only a fleeting moment in time before which we scud onward to the next “goal".
With young kids there is less to untangle. When they fall to the ground while teetering, we can choose to laugh. We can rejoice in the reminder to lift our feet and chuckle at the idea that walking could be done any other way. There, we see that failure is simply a fact of life.
With older humans we know that they’ve had more time to engrain both the idealism of a life without failure (and thereby without fear) and the affirmation that avoidance equals safety. Except, that is, if this person were to imagine that anything about their life could be different from the way it is: safe, inoffensive, and stagnant.
Fortunately for us educators, there are other forces at play that a good coach can harness on the path towards change. Namely, there is Purpose and, to a lesser extent, Desire. When it comes to Desire, a simple equation arises: when Desire exceeds fear, change is put in motion.
Purpose is, importantly, much more vague. Purpose lives deep inside of an impossibly small place that thinking mind cannot fold itself into. This is a feature not a bug, because Purpose is the best way to bypass the thinking mind’s fear of failure. Desire is not the terra firma we’re after, because Desire is a finite resource and is just as fleeting as the idea that anything will change once a goal is reached. It is only Purpose that offers a coach the sufficient gigawatt-hours of output per student.
Purpose is so powerful that it can be unrelated to the end-goal entirely, and still be harnessed as an atomic energy source for change and progress. Purpose offers a cyclical reminder that only through the application of this inherent energy within us, can we remind ourselves of our own vitality. And when we point this energy towards failure, we can view it as a change of state rather than an affront to our being, because Purpose reminds us why we began this journey in the first place.
Purpose can supercharges the very simple proposition that I put forward to my students and artists: Failure isn’t just a part of the journey towards your destination. Failure is the journey and the destination rolled into one.
