Excuse me, but my imposter syndrome is about to show.
There are a lot of days I feel like a failure.
I get like this every year. It’s like the plummeting part of the roller coaster. For me, when each wedding season ends, there is a lull between the holidays and Valentine’s Day when no one seems to want to leave the house or spend money. It’s around this time every year that I feel like I’m failing.
I’ve started thinking about what it means to follow your dreams. Owning a business is like riding a roller coaster: some days you’re on your way up the highest point of the roller coaster, and other days you’re plummeting down to the earth, bracing yourself for a crash landing.
What I’m trying to say is, owning your own business or following your dreams (whatever that means to you) is not for the faint of heart.
I think about something director Kevin Smith said several years ago,
“In Hollywood, you just kind of fail upwards.”
When I first even considered becoming a photographer professionally, I thought about this a lot. And it has sort of become my mantra every year since.
Of course, you don’t have to work in Hollywood to understand what he’s talking about. For Kevin, he’s pointing out that it’s common in the entertainment industry to leave one gig and suddenly have a better role at the next, even if you did not succeed at the last job nor are qualified for the job you just acquired.
The reason for the momentum forward despite the failure? Showing up.
Everyone feels like a failure at some point. What’s important is what you do with that feeling.
Failing is not the thing that will stop you from achieving a goal; it’s giving up after failing. Failing is the universe is telling you to reinvent yourself and try a new approach.
And to go back to what Kevin said, achieving goals is nothing more than a series of mistakes and failures, which is what makes working towards a goal so scary.
Whoever said, “Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” was wrong. If you do something you love for work, prepare to work all the time, even on your days off. Sometimes you’ll work so hard that the thing you love so much sometimes becomes a burden. Sometimes you’ll burn out. Sometimes you’ll make bad decisions. Sometimes you’ll agree to something that sounds like a great step forward and instead takes you two steps back.
But remember, you’re failing upwards, and each time you don’t succeed is a chance to learn and grow.
Another favorite quote of mine is from Gilbert Gottfried (someone who went through a very public blunder in his career) in the documentary Gilbert,
“I don’t know if I ever had a clear vision of what success was going to be, and whatever it is it’s always different. The way things turn out are always different from what you imagine them.”
No matter how successful you become, you are not immune to failure. Maybe that sounds depressing, but I find it totally invigorating.
Social media only gives you a tiny window into people’s day-to-day life.
Take anyone you follow — whether it’s me or Oprah— they share their lives and careers online but are really only revealing a small snippet of what they are going through on a day to day basis. You cannot possibly judge someone’s entire success on only what they present publicly.
Listen, we need to talk about this. Social media makes other people’s lives and careers seem PERFECT. But social media is not real life. Social media is a highlight reel. I have a list of credentials and accomplishments here on my website, but I don’t exactly share all the photo contests I’ve lost or editors who have turned me down. Who wants to be the debbie downer who shares failures? But maybe there’s merit to sharing something we’re ashamed or embarrassed to admit.
Social media can be used for good but it also can very quickly spiral into something that is unattainable. There was a point in time when I looked back on my own posts trying to remember what was really happening in the moment I was posting something. I sometimes find myself seeing memories show up and being jealous of myself. Now if that’s not the most narcissistic sentence I’ve ever written, I don’t know what would top that. But it’s true: you cannot compare your day to day life with how someone portrays theirs online.
So after a lot of thought and self doubt and inner struggle during my slow season, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to succeed is to fail. And then fail again and again. Sometimes they will be small little failures and other times seemingly catastrophic failures. But these are the times when you need to lean into failure and reinvent yourself.
Maybe eventually we won’t be so afraid of failing, because that will mean the next great thing is just over the hump.