Pallavi Chakravarti on why it is okay to fail

I am woman, hear me roar. See me stomp my way into the hall of fame. Smell the sweet scent of my success. Yada yada yada. It’s that time of the year again. When paeans will be written and odes sung, in tribute to the indomitable female spirit. When everyone and their aunt will remind us how far we’ve come and how the world is our oyster and God’s blue sky our limit.

I just wanted to add my two bits to the commotion and general fanfare. By saying something not quite jubilant or in sync with the auspicious occasion of Women’s Day. So, here goes. It’s ok not to be the stuff of legends on a daily basis. It’s ok not to spend every waking moment of your professional life embodying greatness, shattering glass ceilings, busting myths, standing up and being counted and rising above it all. It’s ok, in fact, to be the opposite. It’s ok to fail. Not because you’re a woman. Because you’re human. We all fail from time to time, the least we can do is not beat ourselves up about it. There’s plenty of others who will happily take on that responsibility for us. And before this turns into a gendered statement, when I refer to naysayers I mean people at large, not men or women in particular. 

Accepting that failure is a part and parcel of working life is something most of us are mortally afraid of. Let’s dive deeper and ask, why? What’s the worst that can happen? If you’re a creative person, someone else’s idea gets picked? You don’t win that award you’ve coveted? If you’re from account management, you’re the first to be thrown under the bus and are yelled at by anyone who has the ability and inclination to yell at someone? If you’re a planner, you’re called a gasbag? If you’re a client, the campaign doesn’t generate the kind of response you had hoped it would? If you’re a director, no one gets your vision? If you’re any of the above, you find yourself out of work? Whatever the case, it’s one idea, one project, one deck, one campaign, one job. A mere blip, when you look at the bigger picture. So, when faced with a debacle, let’s save the self-flagellation for another day and start thinking about where things went wrong and why. 

Identifying the root cause

The key then becomes, to have an open mind. Are you the problem? No one ever wants to consider this eventuality, but it’s possible you are. I remember working in a system once, a long time ago, where everyone around me was comfortable with the way things were running - it was I who was the misfit. Took me a while to see it, but I came around - sure, I failed in that particular assignment - but it’s safe to say that it wasn’t the end of my world, nor my career.  Maybe you haven’t understood the task at hand, thought of something good enough, done your homework, internalised a process, or managed to avert a crisis from spiralling out of control. And you know what? That’s absolutely fine. Provided you identify the gap and take active steps to plug it. Maybe your instinct on something was wrong. Maybe this gig just isn’t for you. And guess what? That’s fine too. We live and learn. Then again, there’s the equally likely scenario that you’re not the problem. Failures can be collective as much as they can be individual. Step back and examine the possibility of such a scenario as well. Are you not getting the kind of support you need from your manager? Is your team not pulling its weight? Is the culture at your workplace not aligned with who you are or with your attitude towards work? Is there a larger, more organisational issue at play? It’s easy to blame yourself. Perhaps even easier to blame others. What’s not easy is identifying the root cause of failure, not being overwhelmed by it and doing something about it. The fix may be a simple one or it may entail a total reboot. But on the bright side, if you get to the bottom of it, look it in the eye and deal with it, there’s every chance you’ll be happier and saner than you have ever been before. 

Having spewed my nuggets of wisdom and blathered on long enough, I just want to acknowledge that all that I’ve written is easier said than done. Because I realise we’re all wired a certain way. Failure is romanticised in the stories of the successful. We’ve all come of age hearing about leading lights who once flunked out of school and came up the hard way, sleeping on railway platforms and whatnot before they went on to conquer the world. Underdog stories are only goosebump inducing when they become top dog stories. No one wants to hear about the person who failed and kept failing. That’s no fun, right? And because it’s constantly fed to us through inspirational stories and forwards and anecdotes and movies and the likes, that failure eventually ends in success, our relationship with the former has become decidedly twisted. It need not be. It’s just another day in the life of you and me. Where we get out of bed aiming to be our best. Knowing at the back of our minds that sometimes, we may not be. And loving ourselves just the same.

This article is penned by Pallavi Chakravarti, Founder & CCO, Fundamental.

Disclaimer: The article features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the stance of the publication.