Blog

Yesterday I watched a webinar on preventing suicide in the work place. Something that struck me was how important it is to share our failures because this encourages others when they fail and helps them to see that everyone fails from time to time and it’s not the end of the world.

 

As I write this, I’m at the hairdresser and a young apprentice just made a big mess with hair colour every where. Her supervisor said, “That’s ok, you should see the big mess I used to make when I was learning”. 

 

We all have epic fails. I’ve had plenty of embarrassing fails. One of my worst fails was the first time I sang in front of an audience. There were literally hundreds of people watching me. I was so nervous that when I opened my mouth to sing nothing came out. My mouth was open but no sound came out. Everyone was looking at me confused. I finally get a noise out but it’s not in tune and I’m completely out of time. Then I get to the second verse and my mind goes blank. I can’t remember the words. Everyone is looking at me wondering why I’m not singing and wondering what’s going on. Thankfully the backup singers take over and I remember the words by the end of the verse. 

 

I’m absolutely mortified and feel like hiding forever. Later, a lady came up and said, “Your singing was so beautiful I cried and I never cry”. I said, “Thank you, that’s so kind of you. I was mortified when I opened my mouth at the start and nothing came out and then I forgot the words to the second verse”. She said, “I didn’t even notice that”. Others gathered around and agreed that they hadn’t noticed my mistakes. 

 

That taught me alot. Failure can seem like the end of the world when we are the ones failing but those looking on don’t see it as failure. Don’t be afraid to fail, don’t be ashamed when you do and please encourage others by sharing your failure experience.

 

Sharing is caring. Please feel free to share your epic fails in the comments. It’ll encourage everyone who reads it.