Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

failure

Beginning Again After Disappointment

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I admit, in the days following the terrible-no-good-very-bad-half-marathon, I seriously considered giving up running for good. Doubt and fear dampened both my confidence and my longtime love of the sport. I wondered if maybe that terrible race was a sign that after 32 years, my running days were over.

The truth is, it’s hard to begin again after experiencing disappointment or failure. As our mind works overtime, a cacophony of voices chanting a negative refrain, we start to second-guess ourselves. Failure wreaks havoc on our self-confidence and can even leave us questioning our identity or calling.

Last week, as I was considering whether to hang up my running shoes for good, I thought a lot about the disciple Peter.

Peter was all too familiar with failure. He who had so confidently and emphatically proclaimed his love for and loyalty to Jesus had, in the end, profoundly failed his Lord and Savior when he denied knowing him three times before the rooster crowed. Peter’s was, by all accounts, an epic fail.

I can only begin to imagine the depth of Peter’s remorse, disappointment and self-doubt in the aftermath of his failure. I can only begin to imagine how he must have replayed his denial of Jesus over and over in his mind and the impact of that failure not only on his confidence, but also on his understanding of himself and his identity as a disciple of Jesus.

Which is why I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the resurrected Jesus repeated his pointed question to Peter not once but three consecutive times: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Jesus knew Peter’s confidence had been shattered by his failure. Jesus knew that in order for Peter to begin again, he needed to relearn and re-remember that failure did not define him, nor did it undermine the role God had for him and the person God had called him to be. In repeating, “Yes, you know I love you,” three times out loud to Jesus, Peter was reminded once again of his identity and his role.

In this exchange with Jesus, Peter remembered that his failure, terrible and disappointing though it was, ultimately did not diminish who he was at his core.

I realize it’s a little silly to compare my story of a disappointing race with Peter’s calling as a founding leader of the early Christian church. But the truth is, each of us will fail multiple times in our professions, in our relationships, and in our character over the course of our lives, and there are important lessons to be learned in even the smallest, most ordinary stories, even in the smallest, most ordinary failures.

Last week, seven days after my disappointing finish in the half marathon death march, I slid my feet into my running shoes, double knotted the laces, and stepped out the front door. As I began my slow jog down the street, stretching my stiff legs and breathing in the chilled morning air, I remembered that one failed race does not define me. I remembered that one failed race does not diminish the joy and satisfaction I get from running. I remembered that one failed race does not undermine my future as a runner.

Last week when I stepped out the front door, I remembered that I am a runner. And I began again.

3 Ways to Fail Better

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I set a personal record in my fifth half marathon last week. Except it’s not what you think. My PR was for my Worst Half Marathon Time Ever. And not my worst time by mere seconds or a handful of minutes. My worst time by many, many, many minutes.

This was a race I’d trained for diligently since December – more than five months of near-daily running, incrementally building my distance over time. And yet, less than two miles into the 13.1-mile course on Sunday, I knew.

I knew I was going to have a cataclysmically bad run. I knew there would be much suffering and gnashing of teeth (to say nothing of quivering muscles and gasping for breath).

I seriously considered quitting at mile six. Lumbering down the street, runners passing me on my right and left, my breath ragged, tongue parched, leg muscles stiff and heavy as tree trunks, I weighed my options. Realizing I didn’t have a way home, I reluctantly pressed on, though I couldn’t fathom how I would complete seven additional miles.

Long story short, I made it. I finally staggered across the finish line and even received a medal for my efforts. But in my mind, the race was an epic fail, not only because of the time but because of how catastrophically bad I’d felt all the way through.

One thing you should probably know about me, if you don’t already, is that I don’t fail well. As a Type 3 on the Enneagram, failure is anathema to me. Type 3s are all about success and achievement, results and outcomes. If we show up and do the work, we expect results, and we expect those results to match our expectations, thank you very much.

But here’s the hard truth about running a race (or anything in which you have an expectation of results): No matter how well you plan, prepare, practice, train and line up your ducks ramrod straight, you cannot control the outcome. You cannot predetermine the results.

No matter whether your failure is personal or professional, whether it’s private or on display for all the world to see, failure stings. Walking through failure can leave you feeling battle-worn and world-weary. It shatters your confidence, fans the flames of self-doubt, fuels feelings of shame and does a number on your ego. Failure clouds your judgment and skews your perspective. Failure is hard on your mind, your body, and your soul.

I’ve thought a lot about the half marathon since I stumbled across the finish line on Sunday. And let’s be real: this isn’t my first failure rodeo, not by a long shot. Along the way I’ve learned some things about failure, and specifically, about how to “fail better,” as author Dani Shapiro once said, so I thought I’d share a little bit of my hard-earned wisdom with you today.

3 Ways to Fail Better

Let yourself be disappointed.
It’s good and right to acknowledge that things didn’t turn out as you’d planned and hoped for. You bombed the presentation. You earned an F on the exam. You were passed over for the promotion. Failure hurts. Allow yourself to sit with that hurt for a little bit. Don’t brush over it, bury it or write it off. There will be a time to dust yourself off and begin again, but for now, for a little while, let yourself feel the disappointment, frustration, sorrow and even anger with how it all turned out.

Acknowledge that sometimes you can do everything right and still have everything go wrong.
As a Triple Type A Enneagram 3 Super Planner Overachiever, I find this infuriating. If I’ve done everything right, I feel like I am owed the outcome I expect. Maybe you do, too?

But the truth is, running (and pretty much any endeavor we engage in and every goal we pursue) is an exercise, literally and figuratively, in surrender. We can plan and prepare, we can cross every “i” and dot every “t,” but as I said earlier, we don’t get to determine the outcome. Stuff happens. Sometimes there’s not even a reasonable explanation for the stuff that happens. We face our failure. We acknowledge our disappointment. We learn what we can from the experience. And then we begin to work on letting it go and beginning anew.

Celebrate the small victories.
You may not recognize them at first, but believe me, the small victories are there. After I posted about my PR for Worst Half Marathon Ever on social media on Sunday, my friend and writing coach Ann Kroeker messaged me with an encouraging, supportive response. (By the way, it’s wonderfully convenient and helpful to be working with a super positive and encouraging writing coach while you are in the midst of a personal failure. File that one under Good Timing.)

“In a way it’s almost more significant to have done it in imperfect conditions,” Ann acknowledged, referring to the unseasonable heat the day of the race and the fact that I was still recovering from an illness. “There’s a whole story here about following through even when circumstances are not as you wish they were. You carry on.”

Truth be told, I hadn’t thought of it that way. But Ann was right; I had carried on. I showed up at the starting line even when I knew I probably wouldn’t be at my best, and I gutted out the race, even under less-than-ideal circumstances. File that one under Small Victories.

No one likes to fail, of course. Failure is humbling and discouraging, and there’s certainly no fun in it. Yet failure is important, even critical, because it’s only in our falling down that we learn how to get back up.

And at the very least, in failing this time, we learn a little bit more about how to fail better next time.

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Fail Better

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A couple of weeks ago I came across last year’s list of New Year’s Resolutions. Let’s just say 2013 was an epic fail, as least as far as resolutions are concerned:

Exercise: Register and run for a 10K. Fail.

Sleep: Lights off by 10 p.m.; up at 5:45 a.m. Fail.

Health: Take a multi-vitamin and calcium pill daily. Fail.

Spirituality: Dinnertime Bible reading. Fail.

Work: Off the computer between 7-9 a.m. and between 3:30 – 9 p.m. Fail times ten.

Like I said, epic fail.

The thing about failure is that it can really set you back (no kidding, right?). You can look at all the ways you missed the mark, and you can conclude you’re a loser with a capital L. A flub. A big-fat-never-going-to-get-anywhere failure. A why-should-I-even-bother-trying disaster.

Or, you can make a different choice. You can choose, as writer Dani Shapiro says, to fail better.

At first glance that doesn’t make a bit of sense, does it? Fail better? What good is that? you might ask. I don’t want merely to fail better, I want to succeed. I want to move forward. I want to overcome, excel, get ahead, reach my goal, surpass my goal.

Fail better? No thank you very much.

But the hard  truth is, success isn’t possible without failure first. To fail better, as Shapiro says, “to be willing to fail — not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime” is key. Failing again and again, failing better, is a necessary part of the process.

J.K. Rowling’s manuscript for Harry Potter was rejected 12 times before it was eventually published, and even then, her editor advised her to get a day job, predicting she would never make a living writing children’s fiction.

Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the multi-billion dollar company he’d built from the ground up. “I was a very public failure,” he noted in a 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University graduates.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

I don’t need to tell you how each of these people pressed on with tenacity, putting one foot in front of the other despite the fact that they undoubtedly felt like a big, fat failure at the time. And you can bet these epic failures aren’t the only ones they endured along the way. These are only the failures we know about.

Even the big-wig apostle Paul failed. He persecuted and murdered Christians for years before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Then, after his dramatic conversion, he continued to fail, acknowledging that even with the best intentions, he failed time and time again.

“I don’t really understand myself,” he admitted in his letter to the Romans, “for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate…I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” (Romans 7:15, 19)

Can’t you hear the frustration in his voice? The despair? The complete and utter disappointment in himself?

But Paul’s story doesn’t end there, in defeat. He doesn’t give up; he doesn’t let failure overcome him. Instead, he presses on, determined and faithful. “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,” he tells the Philippians, “but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.” (3:13) Paul presses on. He resolves to fail better.

Rowling, Jobs, Disney and yes, even Paul, remind us that failure is not only inevitable but necessary, and not only in work, but across the spectrum: in our jobs, in parenting, in marriage, in friendship, in faith. Failure is always, always part of the recipe for success, yet we need not dwell on our shortcomings. We need not obsess over where and how many times we’ve missed the mark. Instead, we reflect, we try to learn from the missteps, we take stock, and then we press on in faith and hope.

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My 2014 Resolutions:

1. Improve microbiome health with regular probiotics.
2.  Exercise: Run 4-5 days/week.
3. No computer 7-9 a.m. and 4:30-9 p.m.
4. Daily morning Bible reading 6-6:30 a.m. &
#TheJesusProject memorization
5. Fail Better

And with Holley Gerth’s new link-up here.