Celebrate The Failure
Today marks YESyoga’s 2nd Year anniversary and did you know on October 13th Finland celebrates National Day of Failure. That’s right, CELEBRATES it.
We have a phrase that we use within our team, (created by Erin Anderson at Live Big Co, YESyoga’s and Erin’s personal mentor) when something doesn’t work, when something needs to change we “burn it down.” For us, when we fail at the studio, we burn it down and move on. We use the “burn” theme in a lot of our branding and in creating content and inspiration.
Growing up in Kansas, the fields were burned about every year. There is a gorgeous area within Kansas called “The Flint Hills”, located in north eastern Kansas, and driving through there during burn season is incredible. The simplicity of the plains matched with the complexity of fire is a site unlike any other. They burn the fields to get rid of plants that are already growing, pests that are taking over, or for other unwanted things in the field that would be a failure to the new crop. This burn wipes the failure clean and leaves room for new growth.
Coming into year two, we are burning a lot down, including our expectations for what the next month, quarters, and the next year looks like. We are burning down the way classes used to be, we are burning down what a successful company full of lot of employees looks like, we are burning down the retail that didn’t work, but mostly we are burning down the idea that this past year is a failure.
So instead of standing on our pile of failures as we walk into year two, we are taking a burning match to them and creating a clear, clean space. We thank the piles of failures for all they taught us, and it’s time to burn it and plant the seed for the future.
We would love for you to celebrate your failures today, and create an opportunity to burn it down. The best way to do this is to acknowledge what your failure is, and what actually happened in the failure. NOT the dramatic, telenovela story of the failure that we all love to tell, but the facts, the boring “this failed, it didn’t work.” Ask yourself what ACTUALLY happened.
Having trouble?
Think about a time you failed a few years ago. What actually happened? Did you get fired/ quit a job? Did you get a divorce? Did you accidentally trip over a curb? What actually happened? More than likely there is a success story on the other side of it. Like that you quit your job (you can probably tell this really awesome story about how your boss was a total dick head), but what actually happened was your old job wasn’t working, you quit/got fired, and you probably found a new great job. You found out you and your new boss are way more aligned and you realized the right questions to ask, or the right company to look for when searching for your new job.
It’s time today, to burn it down, to take action into moving from failure to success. Even if you don’t do any physical action (please for the love of God don’t actually burn anything), mentally recategorizing the event of failure and moving it over to success in your brain can make such an impactful and huge difference, but it has to start with acknowledgement.
Today, celebrate your failures, because without them you wouldn’t have achieved success.
(Photo by Edoo Photography, this is from an outtake of our recent photo session. The epic "ball passing" failure.)