57: “Failure” is Actually Healthy
with Dana Fonteneau
First and foremost, it's crucial to define “failure” and to define “success” because oftentimes individuals feel failure or success because of emotion. They might feel elated or they might feel crushed, but they don't quite know why. They haven't taken charge of their thinking. They haven't taken charge of what was really going on in their mind. And oftentimes we’ll find that when people perceive failure, it is because they had a goal that was undefined, it was un-strategized, it was not based in space time.
I'll give you an example. Oftentimes, let's say at the conservatory level, someone is entering a concerto competition and they're entering it for the first time, and they're playing a required piece, and they're playing a piece that they've never played before. So they're listening to a recording and they're listening to that recording over and over and over, and maybe intellectually they understand that that recording has been edited and spliced, but they still have an unconscious expectation that they're supposed to sound at the exact same level as that recording. But in the practice room, they're practicing with their cell phone on or they're practicing getting mad at themselves or they're practicing criticizing themselves and they're practicing with a poor posture or there's nothing about their strategy of practicing that is in alignment with the outcome. And then when they get on stage and they have unexpected things that distract them or upset them or they have a memory slip and they haven't practiced recovering from memory slips or they haven't practiced recovering from unexpected stimulation, or they haven't practiced recovering from an injury or a soreness or something that they didn't expect to happen. None of that was practiced ahead of time, and then they don't perform like they thought they should, which was the standard of recording. They're often completely crushed and then they think, “Oh, I'm never going to have a life, and I failed. I didn't win that competition. I suck, I have no value.”
And that's a really clear example of unconscious expectation that's completely a fantasy because it's not reality based. It's a recording that has been spliced and edited with somebody else's sound, somebody else's instrument, somebody else's venue. And nothing in the preparation was at the standard in the consistency required to get that outcome.
I use this example as a way to say that the failure is healthy. That is a good failure, meaning that that is not a congruent goal, that is not a realistic goal and that's not an authentic goal. A different goal would be how do I play with my sound, with my voice, with my vision, and how do I strategically plan my practicing so that I feel confident and grounded and centered and poise adaptable? I can pivot when something goes unexpectedly, and that is I regain my focus so that I am what I am focused on the outcome of the sound, the character, the feeling, etc., etc..
So I think failure is actually incredibly healthy because it really just shows incongruence. And what we call success, I, again, as I said before, it's a round hole in a round peg, meaning it was the right thing at the right time. There was alignment with the goal, there was preparation that was prepared for the goal and it was the right solution with the right jury or the right people who love that sound. And you could say that's alignment. It's nothing more than confirmation of, “That preparation went well. Do that, do more of that for those kinds of goals.” That’s the key, not for everything, but for that kind of goal study that, reverse engineer that, pay attention and refine it, tweak it, and uplevel it, and make sure that the preparation is congruent for the outcome. This can apply to job interviews.
For example, when people say, I'm going to go apply for this conservatory teaching job. I’d ask them to go and study the culture, the other faculty, the administration, the board, the city, the community, to really actually understand what that position is fitting into in a whole picture. Because a lot of times people think, Oh, well, I didn't get that job because I'm not famous enough and they actually have no clue that what they're bringing to the table is a Lego piece that's fitting into a lot of dynamics, a lot of personalities, a lot of agendas...
And so the more prepared we are, the more congruent the goal, making sure that the solution is-- you being the solution to the challenge that that university or college or conservatory is facing and that you are the one to bring that solution forward. Again, that's what I call the round hole in the round pegs. So, so this is a lot about being clear and concise with thinking and expectations and making sure there's no fantasies in there that are just totally not grounded in reality.