Failure Is All It’s Cracked Up To Be

Last November was the worst month of my life. I was trying to recover from a devastating professional failure, understand how I ended up trying something I turned out to be so ill-suited to do, and figure out what to do next.

Can you say Happy Holidays?

(As far as tough times go, mine have been minor to what many of you have endured or are currently experiencing, so I don’t want to overdo it, but as far as my little world goes, I wasn’t having much fun this time last year.)

I’ve always tried to pay attention and learn from my experiences. This is one of the best ways wisdom to acquire wisdom: learn from your mistakes. This past year has given me plenty of opportunities to learn. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to do my best to write as clearly, and as honestly, as I can about what I’ve learned over the last twelve months.

One reason for writing these lessons down is that I don’t want them to slip away. I want to collect and keep them for my own benefit. Another reason is that I have greatly benefited from reading what others others have learned from their failures and disappointments. Their willingness to bare their souls and share their insights has been a gift to me.

In a recent post, James Altucher (I enjoy most of what he writes, but it is definitely not for everyone) responds to a reader’s question about a popular self-help book. After giving it a favorable mini-review, he writes:

The one thing I think limits [the author] is that he hasn’t raised a family, or failed at a business or a career, or has shared his own stories of sadness, depression, and pain. I think that ultimately limits his message. Many of have real careers that we are stressed about, family that drives us crazy, businesses that we fail at. Many of us need to get off the floor after those failures and know that the hand that’s reaching out to us comes from someone who has been there before.

Maybe what I manage to scribble down and publish here will help a few of us continue to “get off the floor.”

The first thing I want to say is that failure is absolutely all it’s cracked up to be. If you set your heart on something and go for it and fail to get there, it hurts.

The failure I’ve had to recover from over the past year hasn’t just been that I failed to lead a successful church planting project, but rather it was that I failed to become the kind of church leader I’ve been aspiring to be for the past fifteen years. When we pulled the plug on the church plant it was more than just the end of a project to which I’d given two years of my life, it was the end of a professional dream, or so it seemed at the time.

The experts will tell you that the best way to overcome failure is to externalize it. Don’t make it personal. Early on, this was something I was unable to do because “professional” ministry is such a personal endeavor.

The church plant didn’t fail because I wasn’t a good preacher or because I didn’t understand successful church planting techniques. It failed because I didn’t have the heart or the will, to keep going. I couldn’t make myself keep doing something I wasn’t enjoying because it wasn’t a good fit for my strengths and gifts.

How did I end up in such a place? While there are a number of external and internal contributing factors to consider, the brutal reality I had to face was that my catastrophic failure to be the kind of pastor and leader I wanted to be was the result of my arrogant and misguided attempts to be something I’m not.

(I’m intentionally using over-the-top language because it describes how I felt at the time. Much of my perspective has been reframed since then, so there’s no need to leave a comment telling me I’m being too hard on myself. Thanks though.)

Back to what I learned about failure. It really is a terrible thing. It causes you to question your worth as a human being. There are days when its a struggle to get out of bed or to stop eating doughnuts or to stop eating doughnuts while still in bed.

Anyone who tells you that failure isn’t that big of a deal is either lying or has never really failed at something deeply important to him. I now find it hard to trust or really listen to someone who doesn’t have a nice big failure on his resume.

Failure sucks. It is also one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Not because I bounced back and made a million dollars or because it led me to discover the long-buried secret to levitation. But because it forced me face the lies I’ve been telling myself for most of my life. It drove me to my knees in surrender to God, something, despite all my years as a pastor, I’d never really had to do. It showed me who I could count on and who I couldn’t. It broke my hard heart. It set me free to stop pretending. It’s given me the chance to dream new dreams better suited for the personality I have, instead of the the personality I (and others) have always wanted me to have.

Failure is an awful thing. It makes for dark days, long nights, and painful conversations.

You should avoid it if you can.

But if you can’t, I highly recommend it.