You Must Fail Because It Is The Path

Im in the middle of all of it right now, (Failing), but In an active way. Im writing this because I haven't figured everything out yet. Not even really my main short term goals , let alone my long term goals and dreams. But its becoming clearer and clearer to me this is what I signed up for.

When you start creating no matter what it is music, videos, writing, or any kind creative journey you imagine this clean type of progression.

Learn the Skill.

Apply it.

Succeed.

But the actual reality is a lot sloppier.

Learn,Apply, Fail, Adjust, Fail differently, Learn again.

The more I try, experiment, adjust, I realize failure isn't a interruption to the path.

It's the Path itself.

But it's not just the acts of failing themselves.

It's all the shit that comes with it.

Having to Fail in public where everyone can watch.

Hearing people that you know, and ones you don't know telling you how to do it better or how they would do it, because (basically) how you're doing it is stupid.

Even though they haven't done it themselves.

It's the unsolicited advice from the people who have never built anything themselves, never mind that they have no specific skills in your craft or industry to give true critique.

It's their judgements layered on top of your own voice saying, you should have it all figured out by now. The comparing yourself to imaginary timelines and feeling like you’re already behind.

Even though you know comparison and modeling the people in your craft, is how you developed to even get to where you are now.

It's all of this, plus the willingness to sit in that discomfort. When something you put time, effort, and soul into doesn't quite land how you wanted.

To accept the feeling of those results and keep it pushing. Telling yourself "I am willing to look foolish at the cost of getting better".

Pursuing any thing great takes adapting to different levels of growth. Many of us in the beginning of the journey don't truly see how much growing you will have to do.

To grow, you have to let parts of yourself die.

There's an old saying: " A coward dies a thousand deaths, but a soldier only dies once".

I've always thought this was a dope quote, which led me to think about this in another way, the almost inverted version.

The soldier or the brave one dies a thousand deaths, but they do this deliberately. They learn how to die these little mental/emotional and even small physical deaths over and over again.

The coward avoids them, hiding, shrinking away from potential failure and exposure.

We are all both.

The decisions we make day to day will push one forward and the other backward, but neither ever totally disappears.

I got a tattoo a while back that keeps the concept in my mind on a regular basis.

There are moments that I can feel the growth in my patience, strategy, innovation, skillsets from the path I chosen.

Other times it's hard to pin point where I've grown, what i've created that I still consider dope, or how far I actually am from many of my goals.

When you're motivating yourself along the journey of becoming, but haven't quite hit the momentum marks you've been wanting to. It's tempting to say " the reward is who you're becoming" but what I feel myself saying underneath is f*ck that, I want to get the material rewards along with the spiritual ones.

As the dreamers, creatives, and innovators of the world, we know that what we do is bigger than money. We wouldn't spend so many years developing without getting money from it if we didn't.

But, money and material access is one hell of a way to measure your momentum growth. It's external evidence many times for ourselves and others that our ideas are working.

Without this external reassurance you would have to rely on only internal fortitude and beliefs.

And this is the point.

We only develop this mental strength by failing, looking foolish, adapting, repeat. At times it just feels like exploring new topics, skills, habits, etc and everything is basically cool.

But, those days of extra growth come when I'm frustrated at not understanding something quicker, but push through. When the idea isn't coming out how it is in my head but I make a first draft/rough cut anyway. When I think "people haven't seen this version of me yet, will it mess up what they think of me", but keep creating my way anyway.

This is where the faith is built. Where the unique identity is built.

Failing forces you to get creative.

Teaching you to see problems at different angles and test solutions you'd never consider if everything worked on the first try.

That's why failure is the path. You become more patient, more resourceful, more self directed. It's the path that forces us to change and become the different versions of ourselves that can sustain the things we're working so hard to create.