“Do or do not, there is no try.” Most know this Yoda quote. What’s not said, but perhaps implied in this is that in fully doing, you commit, and that means you also risk failing. So, “Fail and fail again, without, there is no ultimate success.”

I’ve noticed that some of my patients who experience a lot of anxiety are afraid to try something new. What if that new thing doesn’t work? What if I make mistakes? What if I’m told, “No.”? What if I fail?

As a Gen Xer, I feel like I was provided a lot of opportunities to fail and to be told I had failed. That might sound bad, but it wasn’t. Not always, anyway. A “fail” might have come as a, “Good try, but not this time. Do it again.”

Traditional Chinese Medicine and Anxiety

Anxiety might be considered as a combination of fear and overthinking. You’re afraid of what might happen because you’ve been overthinking it. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), fear is related to the Kidneys–atop which sit the adrenal glands that can pump out the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol–and overthinking and worry is related to the Spleen–which is in charge of processing food and drink, as well as thoughts.

So facing fears and getting out of our heads is one way to practice managing anxiety. Of course, this needs to be tempered to adjust the level of intensity for the individual, and supportive treatments like acupuncture, Chinese herbs, supplements, nutrition, and counselling can all help ease the efforts. But let me tell you how facing and experiencing failure can also be helpful.

Fail So You Can Build Confidence

Fell off your bike? Dust yourself off and get on it again. I remember getting a bike that was just a bit big for me. I could only touch one foot on the ground at a time, so first time on it I fell and cried. I was mad that my dad told me get up and try it again, but after he wiped away my tears, I did get back up and fell a few more times. Until I got the hang of it. I learned that I could do something hard. Something that I didn’t think I could do.

Skating brought many lessons in failure. Falling can hurt. I still have a big scar on my lip from one of those falls. I remember my mom having to get me a “bum pad” so that I would keep learning how to do an axel. I hated that jump throughout my whole skating “career,” even when I learned tougher jumps. But I still had to do it. It was a mandatory element. And I did it. And I fell a lot. But I also landed it more and more often.

After watching me get too deep into my own thinking and scaring (also scarring!) myself out of trying another jump (a double loop), my mom told me that I had one chance—one attempt—to try it and land it. It would have been my very first time landing it. I already had full rotation in the air, but for some reason, every single time, I would bend my landing leg and fall, often on my knee. It hurt a lot! So, I was scared to keep trying. My mom told me that if I landed it, she’d give me $50! If I chickened out again, if I fell, if I didn’t land the jump clean, no money. I got out of my head, skated into the jump, and…landed it clean. Then skated directly toward her with my hand outstretched to receive the cash. After that I continued to (sometimes, not always) land it because I knew I could. The money, ultimately, didn’t matter. I was happy to spend that, but I was happier to know I had another jump under my belt.

Skating also brought me many opportunities to receive written notice of failure because three judges would evaluate me for each skating test. I still have some of those failure notices. Note that they didn’t just write, “Fail” though. They would include the reasons for that failing grade. That would provide my coach and me with information about what to work harder on. Not that it felt good to fail. It sucked. I had worked hard and I was told by my coaches that I was good enough to pass. But on the day, maybe I wouldn’t show them my best or maybe the judges would be harsher. Some of those judges were even other skaters who were higher level than me. I didn’t feel angry at them for failing me. I felt like I wanted to show them I could do better. Here’s one of my papers showing my failure to pass a figures test (they no longer teach compulsory figures).

When I taught skating, one of the first lessons we demonstrated and taught our little students was how to fall. Then they had to practice it. We told them, “You’re going to fall, so let’s learn how to do it well (and safely).”

I remember being scared of doing new things. I spent a lot of time in my head. As a kid, I was often described as conscientious, meticulous, and shy. I was no daredevil. I was the kid who would sit back, watch other kids do something, see if they got hurt, and then decide if I’d try too. Some of those fears felt really valid, like I could harm myself. And, in some cases, despite my cautions, I did get hurt.

But others around me helped me with confidence in my ability to succeed. Or couldn’t take lack of trying as an excuse. One time this latter happened was when I was taking diving lessons. I was up on the 5m platform, and I didn’t want to jump. It was my first time, and I could see all the way to the bottom of the pool. The longer I stood there, the more scared I became. I was about to turn and walk back down the stairs when up walked my coach’s coach. He was Olympic diving coach, Don Webb. He was fully clothed and had only taken off his shoes (I think). He strode straight over to me while I stood frozen at the end of the platform, and without a pause, he grabbed my hand and jumped. No choice. I don’t think that would go over well these days, and maybe he’d be sued! But my mom and all the parents, kids, and coaches there clapped when we came up to the surface. I may still have been a bit hesitant to jump the next time, but I did. On my own. And many other times.

I never became a high-level figure skater or diver—or volleyball player, or swimmer, or pianist, or dancer (all things I spent time and effort doing)—but it doesn’t matter. I had practice at both succeeding and failing. I did well on my MCAT (medical school application) exam. But when I applied to a medical school while still an undergrad student, though I got an interview, I was not accepted. However, had I been accepted, I never would have moved to Japan to work in a medical university so that I could enhance my resume, and I would have missed out on all those amazing experiences. I would be a different person doing very different things. Which is fine. But I love that living in Japan meant my perspective changed and so did my career plans.

Failure set me up for success.

I write about this today because today I was told that a book that I’ve been working on for about a decade has been accepted by a publisher. It took a lot of work, and it was scary to offer it up to be evaluated by people I don’t know. But I knew that if it wasn’t accepted, I had a plan B in the works. And I knew that I’ve failed before and either decided to change paths or find another way to get what I want.

So, fail and fail again so you can live a life without regrets!