Tag: Failure

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For Shame!

Failure, even if just perceived, results in shame. Shame is that uncomfortable feeling from becoming aware of participation in something inappropriate, dishonorable, ridiculous or humiliating.

When is the last time you felt shame after making an inappropriate comment? What about the private shame you feel from “guilty pleasures”?

When we’re rejected or criticized by others, we also feel shame. It’s a powerful emotion that people intentionally and unintentionally use to manipulate others. We hear of fat shaming or food shaming or parent shaming or emotion shaming. There’s also interview shaming (which I recently experienced from various industries).

Being shamed leaves you helpless and hopeless – there’s no benefit other than elevating the shamer’s ego by putting others down. I have a word for that: bullying.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please get help.
Call 1-800-273-8255 – the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Dealing with shame is probably the most delicate of the issues we face. It’s what I believe is the second leading cause of suicide. There are stories all over the internet, like that of Audrie Pott‘s.

These complex emotions drive our conscious decisions. They inhibit us from making bad decisions, but that also means we forego risk and all its rewards by oversteering away from perceived failure.

But put in the right hands, the shame can be flipped to something powerful and good – accountability. With the right, caring, accountability partner, we can break bad habits and grow stronger character. We can also run other people’s shaming comments by them. Asking delicate questions like “am I really a loud-mouth?” Or “am I doing something wrong with how I raise my children?” to a friend who’s open and honest helps us to see a more unbiased reality.

Accountability is a powerful tool that changes the twisted power of shame into a positive strength towards transformation. Click To Tweet

Sometimes people are just so narrow minded that anything out of their realm of thought should be shamed or bullied out of existence. In these cases, they’re the one who’s acting shameful.

The lesson here is twofold:

1. Get an accountability partner. This is someone you can trust to be vulnerable with and who’s honest in return.

2. Ask your accountability partner to help you see the reality – if you feel shamed by something someone else said, or even by the voices in your own head, run it by your accountability partner. Ask if they see anything and ask for suggestions.

This article is from the “Raw Talk on Failure” series.

Photo by Mitchel Hollander on unsplash

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A Raw Talk on Failure

Over the course of the past few years, I’ve submitted my résumé hundreds of times to various places. Very few have given me the feedback needed to improve professionally. It seems like interviewers often feel it’s a taboo to discuss the interview with the person being interrogated – and I mean interrogated in these cases.

On a rare and special occasion, someone will provide very helpful feedback. One of the most mysterious feedbacks I ever got was after an interview at Google. The day after the interview, the recruiter starts with this question:
“How do you think you did?”

When I responded with something like “I’m so embarrassed. I know I did poorly. There’s no way that would have been good.” then Google would be open for another round of interviews a few weeks later.

But when I responded with something like “I feel really good about it! They threw wrenches and my code already handled all their cases! I feel great!” then the recruiter would stop the interviewing process.

I’ve made some cringeworthy mistakes in interviews that sit like a pit in my stomach. One common thread is that I tried to impress people by doing something beyond myself. Companies don’t care that you move out of your comfort zone. They care nothing of effort – they want results that are easily measurable. Being a senior-level developer that produces junior-level code because I’m developing something outside my experience doesn’t impress.

You might think that you’re getting the “Don’t call us – we’ll call you” message if you ever see the phrase “We’re keeping your resume on file.” in a rejection letter. For the most part, you’re right. But I have had a couple of rare occasions where the company actually did call me back and after another round of interviews, been given nice offers.

Failure and rejection are not the same, and if you're living right, neither are avoidable. Click To Tweet

The point I want to make here is that rejection isn’t the same thing as failure and vice-versa.

Some rejections are not explained, but they aren’t because of a failure on your part. Some failures are obvious and can be tied into that rejection. But sometimes there’s complete failure that results in acceptance and even becomes a model for success.

The greatest rejection we face is that within ourselves. All the names we call ourselves – or that we allow others to call us. For some people, the rejection leads to a dialogue of worthlessness that goes very dark.

After a recent visit to a “Break Free” session, three-fourths of the people from 12 to 82 raised their hands or nodded when asked if they feel harsh failure and rejection from the voices inside their heads.

In the following posts, I’d like to explore this deeper and provide some solid solutions that remedy some of the deepest pains we experience – even those that lead to suicide. The truth is: failure is not an option because it’s inevitable. Even hiding from failure is in itself a failure to live. On the same token, rejection is a continuous battle fought most within our own minds.

This article is from the “Raw Talk on Failure” series.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash