"If you don't start failing at things you're not living a full life."

Sebastian Junger on The Tim Ferris Podcast

I'll be honest, I'm sort of obsessed with failing these days. The idea of failing and the need to fail. I'm going for nos. I'm pushing for failure. Failure means I'm getting outside of my comfort zone and I'm getting uncomfortable.

One of the themes of just about every personal development book I've read is that you need to be wiling to fail. (Even the anti- PD book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck) In fact one of the first books I read was John Maxwell's Failing Forward. I was knew to the world of personal development when I read this. I don' t think mentally I was really there yet.

Failure is hard and scary. As parents its not really something we want for our kids and we work hard to prevent it. For ourselves we often try to avoid failure. Why exactly would you put ourselves in the position to fail. It just doesn't make sense and goes against our instincts to survive.

Failure, however is the one thing that will really help us succeed in life. If you want great big things in life you need to be wiling to fail to get them. You need to be willing to try something new and try something different. One area that we all seem pretty okay doing this is with our relationships. Unless you stay with someone forever, technically isn't every relationship a failure of sorts? Well, no of course not. Every relationship, or at least most of them, is a learning experience putting you in a better positioning. And yet technically these are in fact failures.

This concept is definitely something that I have struggled with but is so important. I will not change my life or get anywhere unless I'm wiling to take risks and fail. Right now I'm trying to teach my kids to fail. I know that isn't something you hear most parents say but looking back I think I spent a huge chunk of my life afraid of failure. I think I missed out on a lot by being that way. I'm hoping, if anything, I can get my kids to get to the point of their lives that they are comfortable with failure. At least get their sooner. Sure I want them to be confident but I want them to be confident to fail. To try things that they don't know if they will excel at them.

Its certainly scary. Its certainly an adventure but its one I'm willing to take.

xoxo,

Tovah