Failure & Judgement
What do you do when things don’t go right, whether in your personal life or at work? Do you get frustrated? Do you despair? Or do you stay calm and regroup?
Although fear can sometimes be the source of adrenalin that creates success, it is also a feeling that may cloud your judgement. In an episode of Arrested Development (season 1), Michael was working overtime on a weekend because he was worried about being unable to pay off the construction workers. Lindsay, his sister, told him to take a break because she was having fun working in the office and proving herself to him. He ended up at the beach still worrying over the project. However, he decided to take a break and started working on building sandcastles. It was at this point that he realized he should change the idea of having individual swimming pools to a single community pool to save costs.
In fact, this fear is a frequently used tool by the Voice of Judgement (VOJ) in our heads. We are afraid of failure or of the perceptions of ourselves. Yet “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently” (Henry Ford).
When Thomas Edison was intent upon creating incandescent light, he went through more than nine thousand experiements in an attempt to produce the bulb. Finally one of his associates walked up to him and asked, “Why do you persist in this folly? You have failed more than nine thousand times.” Edison looked at him incredulously and said, “I haven’t event failed once; nine thousand times I have learned what doesn’t work.”
- Creativity in Business, p54
This VOJ that beats down on our ideas severely hampers creativity and must be destroyed at all costs. One example is that trip around the world that you’ve always talked about. If you break it down and list all the fears (money, job, hassle of packing/unpacking, etc) perhaps you could figure out a way to save up and take that trip in the near future. Or perhaps you may even realize that it is not a top priority and merely a method of escaping current problems by the mere thought of it.
In 1878 Western Union rejected the rights to the telephone with the statement, “What use could the company make of an electrical toy?”
In 1958 British astronomer Dr. R. Woolsey pronounced, “Space travel is utter bilge.”
- Creativity in Business, p51
So tell that VOJ in your head to “Shut the hell up!” and with time, you might actually be able to hear your creative voice more clearly.
