Acknowledging Failure - An Important Part of Growth

I failed at everything that I set out to do yesterday.

I wanted to write down two "NTM" TMEs. I didn't.
I wanted to clean my house last night. I didn't.
I wanted to have a full serving of vegetables or fruit yesterday. I managed to get in about a third of a serving. 
I wanted to stay up until 9pm. I didn't.
I wanted to get my documentation completely done. I didn't.

I did manage to interact with students in six different therapeutic encounters without any type of behaviors of concern happening from anyone. I did manage to engage diverse learners into therapeutic interactions, and I did sort bus duty into a process that took it from 40 minutes of mayhem on Monday to 18 minutes of controlled release on Tuesday, so it's not like I failed at everything ever!

I did fail at some things, but I succeeded in so many more things.

The problem that I have is that I tend to dwell on the failures rather than celebrating the successes. 

I have learned that failure is not as bad as it seems. There are times when I cannot synchronize my therapeutic interventions with my clients' needs. Does that mean that I am a failure at my job? (To be completely honest, there is a part of my brain that is jumping up and down, screaming "Yes, you idiot! It DOES mean that you are a failure! You SHOULD be able to engage every client every time without fail!" My rational brain, however, knows that being human is part of being alive and gives me a break.) There are times when I cannot get to where I need to be to reach all of my clients - AND THAT'S WHAT BEING A THERAPIST IS ALL ABOUT! 

There are times when every single thing that I try does not produce favorable therapeutic results. There are times when I don't even have to do anything at all - the music takes over and I am just the person strumming the guitar. There are times when I make conscious choices to adjust a therapeutic element of music, and everything starts to work. These are all parts of being a therapist, and are all states of being rather than indications of success or failure as a therapist.

Failing on purpose

I had a dear friend who was a brilliant pianist and organist. He had extreme anxiety and was an ultra-perfectionist. He, unfortunately, self-regulated with alcohol to relieve some of his symptoms of (what would now be diagnosed as) his generalized anxiety disorder. He would get so nervous before performing and his anxiety would manifest in a shut down of his brilliant ability to play all sorts of music. He would be unable to play because he would get so anxious about the possibility that he would make a mistake. He would sit and stare at the keyboard instead of just playing. His expectations of himself were so strict and so tied to whether he hit the right notes or not that he could not handle the possibility.

Eventually, he talked to my mother about this. My mom is a retired Occupational Therapist and has worked with many people in many different situations over her career. They were talking, and my mother asked my friend what he thought would happen if he missed a note during his many beautiful musical performances. He had started to think that failing to hit every note exactly right would be very embarrassing and would lead to losing jobs, lack of respect, and all sorts of other things. My mom admitted that she didn't really notice if the music was perfect - it was perfect to her ears because it was his - he was playing it, and she trusted him to play the music his way. That seemed to make things worse. Then, he had the responsibility to play things accurately so that the composer's hard work would be accurately portrayed. Mom thought that was a bit nonsensical. Eventually, the two of them came up with a plan. My friend would plan to make a mistake - plan to miss one note in a song - and see what happened. Since it became part of a plan, it was a bit less stressful for him. He began to look forward to making that mistake - missing that one note in that run or not sustaining a trill quite as long as the composer indicated. He started to notice that nobody noticed these things. They still respected his talent and gift.

I'd like to be able to say, "Poof! He no longer had any sort of anxiety," but we all know that's not how things work. His anxiety lessened when he would plan to make a mistake, but it was still very much present. He was able to function in his job duties, however, and that was what he needed at the time.

There are times when you can learn so much more from failing than you ever do from succeeding. I failed in my quest to get another degree. It wasn't because I couldn't do the work - I did the work - it was because my life quality tanked during the degree. I could not get either myself or my professors to get me to the finish line, so my option became either keep beating the dead horse or unhook my cart and move on. I chose to move on. I remember what my life was like when I was failing at something that I thought I wanted. I remember how much school stressed me financially, in matters of health, and the amount of anxiety I was experiencing. Turns out, I don't want those stressors in my life. I moved on from my biggest, most expensive, and most personally embarrassing failure...I think.

So, I failed to do most of what I wanted to do yesterday, but I succeeded in things that were a bit more important to me. I was able to facilitate therapy with my clients. I was able to get my expectations across to staff members (my primary goal for this week), and I left my job feeling pretty satisfied about what I had accomplished even though I didn't get my to-do list finished.

I then came home to find a leak in my ceiling from the apartment above, and that just made everything else a bit more difficult to handle. I cleaned up one part of my home and then reported things to maintenance. I waited for someone to show up to fix things, but no one did, so I went to sleep.

Today, I will try to get some of the things that I have on my list finished up. I definitely need to do my documentation - that is the most important part of everything. I will succeed in many ways today, and I will fail in others, and that's what makes me who I am as a therapist.