I Messed Up and I Want To Tell You About It

You failed! You completely fell on your face and learned from it, great! Now are you willing to share it with the world?

Everyone knows the importance of learning from failure, but how often do you share your own failure so that people outside of yourself, can also learn from your experience? BECAUSE Caitlin, it’s okay for ME to know I failed, but it is NOT okay for OTHER people to know.

I agree, because I am a human, to a point, but I think there's a better option. I'm going to step into my fear of "looking bad" and tell a story about how I messed up with a client, the very person who I need to see me as a flawless expert to survive in my business (or at least that’s what my “inner critic” or “ego”, who is FREAKING OUT right now, tells me), for the purpose of sharing a lesson I learned.

Here goes. I facilitated a workshop recently for a new client, so the success of this workshop would likely dictate how much they use me in the future. I started the day with the intention, “I’m here to serve.” However, once the afternoon rolled around and it was my turn to facilitate, they were running behind. What was supposed to be 90 minutes reserved for my training quickly shifted to a little over an hour. I had a lot to cover and this is where I got in trouble. A pesky voice in my head showed up and said, “This is a new client, you have to show them how much you know!” overpowering “I’m here to serve.”

The value that I bring to the table, is that I help people to listen to one another, through experiences, practice and discussion in order to create a better team atmosphere and culture (aka not me dominating the conversation with content). Unfortunately, the “Impress them with your knowledge!” voice took over and instead of cutting out content to make room for the important pieces, the discovery and discussion, I kept all the content, and cut the discussion time down.

Now, granted, it was probably not as pronounced as I see it in retrospect, I did receive positive feedback, but I know it could have gone differently. Instead of coming from a place of service, I came from a place of “Let me show you what I can do!” Have you ever experience that yourself? When your need to prove yourself in a superficial (or survival-based) way overtook your mission?

The “inner critic/ego” voice will always be there, the key is to notice it, but not let it guide your actions. It’s the same voice that is advising me to keep this story to myself, but I’m choosing to do something else.

We see people of influence sharing their failures, through Ted Talks, articles etc. and you have an opportunity to do the same! I encourage you share how you’ve messed up and what you learned, with those around you. 

Let's come from a place of service and share what we don't know!