Your Failure Is Not Guaranteed

Your Failure is Not Guaranteed.

When was the last time you attempted something where failure was a real, legitimate possibility? Where you have started out, and suddenly realized the cost, the effort, the skill, the knowledge, the resilience required of you might be more than what you have? Where you find yourself on the edge, peering over into the great expanse of failure.

Some people seem to run towards that edge. Some seem to be most alive when the stakes are highest, when they are pushing against their previous boundaries and limits.

I… am not one of those people. Not intentionally, anyway.

Those of you who know me (or flipped over to the bio page) know that I am a nurse. I don’t write much about my interactions and experiences as a nurse, due to a number of reasons (confidentiality, governing body regulations, a desire to spend less mental time there…). But I will share a little of that world with you today.

Currently I am taking a condensed course to work in the emergency department. It’s all the things you think an ER can be (except absolutely no one is having sex in break rooms, because once you work there you realize that sex in a hospital is about the grossest thing you can imagine). The Emergency Department is fast paced, interesting and chaotic. And it’s demanding.

I’ve been nursing for almost three years, which is to say that I’m still new to this career, but not so new that I’m seeing things for the first time on a regular basis. At least, until I started in the ER. I hadn’t become comfortable, but I had started to settle in. To find a rhythm in each shift. I’ve learned a lot about what you need to know, and just as much about how to handle yourself when you don’t know something.

And in the ER, I have become well acquainted with the gaps in my knowledge. Too well acquainted. Each day, each free moment, I am searching for some symptom, flipping through any number of reference books. And each night I open up my coursework, online articles and textbooks. Trying to ready myself for the next day, the next patient.

As in all things, some days are much better than others.

Some days, you know what you’re looking at, what you’re looking for. You know what the results mean. You know what is coming next.

Other days, you feel your heart in your throat. You focus on your breathing because you feel like each breath needs to be taken intentionally. Like you’re wearing a turtleneck shirt that’s 3 sizes too small.

On those days, I have to be careful where my mind goes.

On those days, I ask myself what life will be like when I am disgraced, unable to finish this practicum. When I fail my course. When everyone knows, I know, that I’m not smart enough. Not experienced enough. Not working hard enough. Everyone will soon know all I don’t know, all the ways I fall short of what’s required. I start to make plans that include my upcoming failure, because it looms inevitable. A great expanse before me.

But it’s not inevitable, is it?

I’m still in the middle of this practicum as I write (and record) this. It’s hard. I’ve handed in a paper that I’m not so sure about. I’m studying flowcharts and algorithms that appear impenetrable. There is a chance that all of my greatest fears could be true. But there’s also a good chance that they’re foundless. That I will get through this course and practicum like every other course and practicum and challenge before. That I will not fail.

Even failure is a deceptive term. What if I do fail this practicum? What then? Each time I feel like an idiot and search a new term, look up a new result, I know more than I did previously. I can read an electrocardiogram now. I couldn’t do that before. I’m quicker at identifying dangerous heart rhythms than I was before. I don’t know all of the cardiac meds we use on a regular basis. But I know some. And I’m learning more. There is (and should be) ultimately a cut off. A decision as to whether I meet the requirements set out for nurses that wish to work in the emergency department. That is a tangible standard that I will either meet, or not meet. But in my practice, in my growth, I am better than I once was.

Their are external realities, such as failing a course, but in the larger context of our life, we get to define what failure looks like. And that defining means we need never fail completely, even as we miss and screw up and struggle.

For me, the greatest threat from failure is always retreat. Opting out. The threat of failure gives me an out as I mentally berate myself for taking such a risk. And at the next risk, the possibility of failure threatens to shuts me down before I even start. ‘Better to never try, rather then try and fail’.

What a steaming pile.

You and I were made to bump up against the threat of failure. To push ourselves past what we know we can do comfortably and safely. We may chase this intentionally, or we may bump up against it accidentally, but if we are growing, we will come across the threat of failure. We need to occasionally be overwhelmed, to bite off more than we can chew. How else would we possibly stretch and grow and learn?

The threat of failure shows us another truth in life. Beware the binary, dualistic answers pitted on either side. You may fail a course, you may let someone down, you may be fired, your marriage may end. But your life is not a pass/fail.

When we look at the binary, dualistic nature of how we judge our success – whether we’ve passed or failed – we know to be wary of it because of its results in our life. What are the results of feeling you’ve failed completely? Defeat, retreat, shame, resignation, the unwillingness to attempt the difficult in the future. And the results of feeling that you’ve passed, that you know all you need to about about given subject? Pride, certainty, and ignorance (because there is always more to know). Neither of the pass/fail terms are ultimately adequate or accurate for our life, and neither term is good for our learning and growth, either.

But I know all too well that that reasoning is firmly in the head. It’s hard when your anxiety is tightening around you, hard to remember that failure is an inaccurate construct when it has it’s boot on your chest.

So remember this: Your failure is not guaranteed. Neither is mine.

I think this is one of those truths, hiding in plain site. It’s so obvious we never look at it. But I think we should. Examine it, remember it, write it on a scrap of paper and fold it in our wallet for the next time we need it. For the next seemingly incredulous thing we want to do. For that moment when you start to play out how the thing won’t work. How it will end up a failure. We can take it out and say: “yeah, you’re right I might fail. But I might not”.

Because your failure is not guaranteed.