My personal practice, and why failure is essential for growth

Whoa boy, am I embarrassed right now.

You see, one of the things I teach—as a core value of my coaching, in fact—is the importance of vulnerability. Asking for what you want is the only way others can help you get it, for example; holding people at arms’ length means having no one near enough to catch you when you stumble; if you don’t let people in, you keep yourself out in the cold. In SO many ways, vulnerability (which is so terrifying to so many of us) gives us power and opportunity, and invulnerability holds us back and keeps us small.

So… why have I been so invulnerable so far in my blog posts and on Instagram? Why was my website, until this morning, exceptionally cold and impersonal when I’m promoting deep personal connections to improve lives?

Because my personal daily practice is Vulnerability, and I was pretty publicly failing at it. Vulnerability in my personal life can only do so much if I fail to practice it in my professional life! And YIKES, have I been failing at that…

So, here I am, publicly admitting my failures. Owning my imperfection. Holding myself accountability by calling myself out and committing to doing better.

I have three daughters, one of whom is currently 3.5 years old. She’s navigating the complicated dynamics of preschool, blossoming independence, the delicate balance between listening to authority and asserting herself so she can find her voice in the world… And, naturally, she doesn’t always get it right. We embrace accidents and mistakes in our family, because they are essential to growing up and learning. I know these lessons are getting through, too, because my little headstrong tyrant has started reminding me: “Mommy, did you make a mistake? When we make mistakes, we build neurons, and that means we’re learning.”

BOY does that punch me in the gut. Because she’s absolutely right! And I’ve been so afraid to make mistakes with my business that I’ve been driving myself to make some huge mistakes, by letting fear block my vulnerability and authenticity. (There’s another lesson here, which is that your energy follows your focus, so fear of making mistakes will only lead to making more mistakes!).

When we make mistakes, we build neurons, and that means we’re learning. Each failure is an approach we can cross off our list of things to try in the future: we’ve learned this one doesn’t work, so we don’t have to try that again. Somehow, this visual of crossing it off the list of options translates a lot more for me than the phrase “Learn from your mistakes” does, and knowing that I am literally creating new neural pathways with each mistake I make, with each failure, to allow me to wire new pathways to try something else next time, makes me feel stronger, more resilient, and much more wise.

So hi there, I’m Whitney, and I’m practicing Vulnerability, particularly in my professional life. I’m not perfect, and I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t always get it right… But I do realize that each time I mess up, I’m growing my brain and building resilience, and I know that my pure intention and dedication to learning mean I am always growing. And I am grateful for that today, as well as for the ability to recognize my own invulnerability so I can choose something different, today and every day.