Failure is Not the Problem - Our Reaction Is

You've heard me say, the greatest gift being an actor has given me is learning to have no fear of failure. Instead, developing the capacity to lean into what most frightens me. This is a skill that took years to cultivate, but will undoubtedly serve me the rest of my life.

What I discovered is that failure is a necessary part of success. Think about it, the two literally cannot exist without each other. What's most important about setbacks is how we frame them in our minds.

I believe failure is just deferred progress. Each time something does not go our way we're instantly given a set of choices, which is itself a gift. You can take a setback personally and allow it to thwart any future attempts towards your goals. Or, you can use it as a Masters Class to ask yourself a series of questions:

-- Why didn't this work?
-- What could I have done differently?
-- What did I learn from this experience?
-- What strategies do I need to implement so it doesn't happen again?
-- How can I pass on the lessons from this experience to others?

In time, you will condition your mind not to get worked up about failures. You'll learn to take failure less personally. And once you develop the skill of taking setbacks in stride and not allowing it to stop you your capacity for innovation and bold risks grows.

Create. Fail. Rinse and repeat.