Sunset at Carmel Beach

I’ve just weathered my most miserable work-related failure to date. I won’t bore you with the details, but the basic facts are these:

•I set a BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal.)

•I went ALL IN.

•Leaving no stone unturned, I did everything in my power to reach my BHAG.

•I willed myself to persevere, despite numerous obstacles and roadblocks.

•And just when I felt I could go on no longer…

I failed.

More accurately, I let my BHAG go.

A last minute reprieve from my fairy godmother didn’t happen, so I was forced to reckon with a very painful reality. After trying too hard for too long, I made the difficult decision to stop. I suffered both in making and living with my decision, and for a long while, I did not know how–or even whether–I would bounce back. To say I was gutted is an understatement.

Recently I found a book that has fast-tracked my resurrection, Brené Brown’s newly-released “Rising Strong.*” An Amazon.com reviewer wrote: “‘Rising Strong’ is investigative reporting on the common denominators of people who whole-heartedly get back up and go another round after getting their asses handed to them in big and small ways.”

Having had mine handed to me in a big way, I was certainly in need of encouragement. “Rising Strong” changed my viewpoint on failure, and also gave me a roadmap for bouncing back.

One of the most useful takeaways from the book was that the “stories” we tell ourselves about our failures often block our recovery. My story, like most stories of disappointment and failure, was fraught with what Brown calls “stealth expectations.” These are the ideas we have about what should or should not be happening to us, and often these expectations are unconsciously held. It is not until they are disappointed or otherwise foiled that they make themselves painfully known.

Using suggested exercises in Brown’s book, I discovered that among my stealth expectations were:

-If I am brave enough, I will be rewarded.

-If I persevere long enough, I will succeed.

-I have to succeed this time; I don’t have another BHAG in me.

-Failure isn’t something that happens to me.

-If I fail at this, I cannot trust my own judgment. Ever. Again.

Some of these are American cultural expectations, others may be more personal to my experience and temperament. That said, every one of us has “stealth expectations,” and when these are not met, we feel confused, bitter, and even wrecked. Without Brown’s prompting, I don’t think I would have known to excavate my stealth expectations, bringing them up into the light for scrutiny. When I could see them, I could question their veracity–and this was the way up and out of my devastation.

Through not reaching my BHAG, I learned that bravery and perseverance do not inoculate me against failure nor guarantee success, but that they are critically important either way. I learned that what I think about a failure dictates my experience of it: if I think it has permanently paralyzed me, it has–and if I see it as a setback with some big growth opportunities, it is. I learned that my big fat failure did not diminish me, it actually grew me.

Bottom line: failing SUCKED. And, I’m a better coach and a better human being because of it. I did not reach the big, hairy, audacious goal that I had set. But for the first time in years, I think I might have another BHAG in me, and I trust that I will be better able to achieve it when it presents itself.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

*http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Strong-Bren%C3%A9-Brown/dp/0812995821/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441805084&sr=8-1&keywords=Rising+Strong