My Year of Better: Failure Resume
Will revealing my bloopers really make me stronger?
I hoped experiment two of Amantha Imber’s Year of Better 2020 would be more successful than week one when the Worry Time experiment unmasked my catastrophizing ways.
Maybe week two would involve some gentle self-nurturing? Maybe a daily massage (even though Amantha explained at the beginning that none of these experiments would cost money)? Hashtag hopes dashed… though could we request a daily oxytocin waterfall* from a family member instead?
Week Two turned out to be about strengthening resilience by reviewing past failures. Hmmm.
Each of us was instructed to prepare our Failure Resume. Starting with our most recent flop, we were to work backwards for at least ten years, just like a normal job-seeking resume, and document our ill-fated fiascos. I was OK with all of this.
Until I got to the next bit.
Having polished up our Failure Resumes, we were to share them publically. This part of the task would be critical in improving our resilience.
I was dubious from the start, but having failed to complete (or even start) the Worry Time experiment, I resigned myself to giving this a shot. Zero out of two would not bode well for my participation in the program in the year ahead. Maybe it would become the latest in a long list of failures…
So I sat down on the last day of the experiment and started to type:
I followed the brief and published my failure resume.
Whether you can read all of it is a different matter.
I might have changed half of it into a different font, weighted the lines to 6pt thickness and converted the document to a PDF but it is all there, published for the world to see, interpret and… judge.
I’m sure the techy of you out there will work out how to decipher it but for the rest, I would rather sacrifice my resilience and remain emotionally soft and putty-like than share the second half of what I wrote. It is too damaging, too painful and too personal. It is too raw to share with you. Yet. Maybe one day I will, when all is lost… or found.
Today I feel vulnerable. I have a fledgling business which might fly or fail based on how I share my story and engage my future clients. Today is the time to show my best, not reveal my worst.
When I was still an employee a few years ago, I was lucky enough to take part in an Innovation Training Program run by Inventium, the company Amantha founded. During the course, we were reminded there are no failures; just opportunities to learn. The phrase ‘flearn’ became common in the office during and after the program: flearn, fail and learn, the quicker the better.
I can internalise the lessons, but forgive me for not broadcasting the failures.
A few weeks ago, a talented writer I know invited me to one of the events celebrating the Lunar New Year of the Rat. Her micro-fiction piece, Rats Don’t Really Like Cheese, had been selected for the performance.
Before the show started, the host informed the audience that the event would conclude with an open mic contest to orate a rat story. At stake was a coveted rat-related prize.
The adrenaline rush hit me at once. I’m not a public speaker, let alone an off-the-cuff orator. Previous presentations have involved careful preparation and hours of practice. Yet here was a topic close to my heart: rats. Here was the auspicious commencement of the lunar year I was born into and carried the initials of my name: R. A. T. Here was a chance to spread inky rattiness.
The two actors on stage brought each story curated for the event to life with humour, emotion and poignancy. Yet I found it hard to hear past my internal dialogue that was hashing together my own rat story. I thought about the journey home afterwards and how I would feel if I never released my tale to this audience. It would be easy to sit still, on my hands and never have to look beyond the spotlight to the blurred faces of the crowd.
The formal part of the event concluded to rapturous applause. My heart beat faster. The host appeared on stage and reminded us of the open mic contest to share our own rat story. I looked hard at the dust bunnies wrapped around the legs of the fold-out chair in front of me. Its occupant stood and made her way to the stage where she rattled off (geddit!) an amazing narrative about the large, bloated, dead rat in the alleyway near her home to the great entertainment of the crowd. A second contender was nudged forward; someone the sound guy knew.
Blood-thumping thunder crashed through my ears deafening their presentation. Afterwards, the host stood again asking for any more contestants. My brain went numb, my zombie-hand raised itself and my mechanical legs carried me to the stage. I started to speak…
… I didn’t win the prize, but I didn’t add this occurrence to my failure resume above either.
Both the pain of regret and the comfort of safety would have been too much to bear on the journey home that evening if I’d never had a go, though I squirmed at my errors and the niggling sense that I could have done better.
Flearn, I said to myself. Flearn. I’d rather have a failure resume than a blank piece of paper.
*being stroked from the top of your head to the base of your back with gentle hands. Go on, try it…
