This year I’m determined to take on my biggest fear… failure. I’m committed to it so much that I’ve made fail my 2020 Word of the Year — and I’m going to fail on purpose 100 times. Around Christmas, I started planning exactly how I was going to fail, and I literally planned it on my calendar. So today I want to break down my full journey with failure and how I’m (hopefully) making it drive my success in 2020.
Word Of the Year: FAIL
I’ve picked a word to base my year around for several years now — and it’s actually worked like a charm. It makes me really intentional, and when I feel like quitting, changing my mind or questioning why I’m doing what I’m doing, my word has always come back to support me.
In 2016, my word was self-discipline. This was the year I started going to the gym 5-days a week and the year I started waking up at 4AM to work on my blog before I went to my full-time teaching job. This was the year that was all about holding myself accountable and starting to build a really good relationship with myself.
In 2017, my word was connect. This was the year I started showing up more on video and sharing more of my personal life with my readers. This was the year I started to connect more business owners to their local customers. This was the year I started the Happy Hour Club!!
In 2018, my word was discomfort. This was the year I started to embrace being uncomfortable. I discovered that true growth happened when I had that terrible uncomfortable feeling. And I learned to LOVE it (for the most part). I trained for a full marathon. I quit my job to take my own business full time. I launched a new website for local online marketing, and I organized a Goals with Action mastermind group. It was waaaay uncomfortable and new.
In 2019, my word was how. Yea, like the question. I wanted this word to help me whenever I came to roadblocks, obstacles or when I felt like something was too complicated or out of my reach in my business. I wanted to train myself to ask the question “how?” when I got stuck instead of saying that it’s impossible or I couldn’t do it. I felt like there was so much more possibility if I learned to ask myself how.
Now, that leads me right into my 2020 word. Last year’s word “how” was a great word for me, but the small problem with “how” is I wanted a solution or answer that would work immediately to solve that problem. Then I’d get frustrated if it didn’t work.
So my 2020 word is FAIL.
In school, we’re taught failure is bad. You make a bad grade, you failed. But when I was a teacher, I didn’t allow my students to fail. They tried again. And again. And as many times as it took to understand that topic or ace that test. Failure was just feedback.
So how could I bring that no-fail mentality into my own business? Especially when failure is my biggest fear (…besides sharks).
I’ve really tried to hone in on why I’m so scared of failure and what failure looks like to me.
What Failure Looks Like To Me:
Failure to me means not having income, being homeless, starving and dying. I’m scared of losing everything that I’ve worked for. It’s the worst that could happen.
It seems dramatic. But it’s true.
But deep down, I know that wouldn’t happen.
If my business failed, I can get a new job. And luckily, I don’t think my family would let me starve and die.
So then I thought more about my fear around failure and realized I’m scared of other people seeing me fail.
A couple years ago, I took a big leap to leave my day job to run my business full-time. I was scared of not succeeding, but I was really scared of everyone else knowing if I failed. The idea of the public shame or humiliation hurt worse than the failure itself. The thought of walking with your head down and your tail between your legs asking for your old job back definitely kept me up at night.
So with all that drama, WHY the heck is fail my word of the year?! And why am I so willing to fail this year?
No, I don’t want to be homeless, starve or die. I don’t want to let people down. And I don’t want everyone to see me fail.
But those are worst case scenarios.
Here’s what I know:
I play it small in my business. I tend to stay safe and do what I know I’m good at. But I just imagine where I could be if I allowed more failure into my business. More risks. More new things.
How I’m Going To Fail:
Our December work in my coaching program was to set an impossible goal for 2020 and to give ourselves 100 chances to fail at it. Basically, your goal is so big that you expect to miss it, but by failing you end up with so many strategic by-products throughout the year.
You end up with a lot of fails, but so many wins in attempt to get there. Plus, you have to completely transform your thoughts around failure.
My list of fails include things like starting a weekly video show (I’m gonna suck at that… at first), launch a group coaching program (no one might sign up), write an ebook (I may sell zero copies), pitch sponsored blog content to businesses (I may hear a lot of no’s), host a new local shopping event (no one might show up), etc.
All this sounds GREAT in theory. I’m totally pumped about everything I’ll create and learn this year. I’m going to grow so much. And even if I do these things and fail, I won’t lose everything, starve and die, right? #winwin
BUT the part getting me is the part where everyone will SEE me fail at many of these things.
When I start a video show, people will see how much it sucks.
When I host a new event, people will know how many people showed up.
Everything will be public. Everyone will see… and judge me.
When I talked to my coach about this, I told her that I was scared for people to see me fail because I try to be an example to local business owners here in Baton Rouge.
How can I teach women how to grow their local business if they see me being a hot failing mess?
And she asked me a question that completely changed my mindset.
She asked: “Can they grow their business without failing at all?”
No.
You can’t. Failure is part of the process. And necessary.
She convinced me to be even more of an example to local business owners by opening up about my failures. Showing them that failure is part of the process.
Growing a business requires you to take risks, try new things and to fail. But you get right back up, take the failure as feedback and try again.
So that’s what I’m going to do!
I’m sharing my fails with you throughout this journey. Each quarter, I’ll round up my fails for you, share what I learned. I’ve already been sharing some on social media if you’ve seen my attempt at becoming a “videographer” lately…
But I wasn’t “failing,” I was learning.
So who’s with me?! If this sounds terrifying but also amazing, then I encourage you to set a crazy goal for yourself this year. Then make a list of all the ways you’re willing to fail to get there!
Cheers to failing in 2020!
Karen Vornkahl
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!
Sara
Love this Leslie! I can totally relate to this in my business. Fear of failure is so real, but you can’t just sit around and do nothing because of it! I’m working on it as well. Thank you for sharing!