True confessions of a failing farmer.

What if we have to fail in order to succeed?

You know that thing where you’re soooo excited for your new project—you dive in enthusiastically and… it’s a disaster. You stand there staring at the paint dripping down your front door, realizing it looks more like a scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre than the trending Pinterest inspo pic you were going for.

You head out for your first run and have to stop and walk after one block.

You check your greenhouse and find that 1,200 baby snapdragons have gone to that great meadow in the sky—because you forgot to open the vents and it’s 150° in there.

 No? Just me?

The Fine Art of Failing

I once heard a flower farmer say:

 “The biggest difference between you as a hobby gardener and me a farmer is that I kill more flowers in a month than you will in a lifetime.”

 As a new-ish flower farmer, I am confident that I can kill more flowers in a day than most people will ever grow successfully. (Impressive, I know.)

But here’s the truth: no matter what we pursue, we’re going to do things poorly before we do them well. It’s baked into the cake, as they say.

And oddly, we know this is true for other people. No one looks at a five-year-old learning to ride a bike and says: "Oops. You fell over. I don’t think you have the talent to ride a bike. You’d better look into another hobby. How about crawling? You used to be great at that."

It’s ourselves that we hold to the impossible standard of instant excellence.

Relearning What We Already Know

I’ve recently been re-reading Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth, and I’ve been challenged—again—by how essential grit is if we want to do anything well.

One of the unexpected perks of being a homeschool mom of teens and tweens is that I get constant reminders of helpful ideas.

I require my kids to read Grit, as well as Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Alex and Brett Harris, during their high school years—and I read right along with them.

One quote from Grit that especially stood out to me this time is:

“Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t. With effort, talent becomes skill and, at the very same time, effort makes skill productive.”
— Angela Duckworth

Angela reminds us of what we knew instinctively as children:

"As much as talent counts, effort counts twice."

When we were toddlers trying to master walking, we fell down. A lot.

I sometimes wonder: If I were a toddler now, would I get back up again, or would I just decide that crawling was more my jam and quit trying? 

We had a new calf born on the farm today. For several hours that calf struggled to stand, then wobbled and fell. Then got back up and took a step, shaking wobbly legs and all. When she inevitably toppled again, she got up again and eventually was rewarded with a belly full of milk. That’s how you succeed at being a cow.

From Frustration to Grit

It sounds silly, but when I’m faced with that ugly front door, a mile I couldn’t run, or that greenhouse full of dead flowers—my gut reaction is usually to give up.

But grit is built through perseverance. And perseverance means acknowledging my mistakes, learning what I can, and always trying to do better tomorrow than I did today.

The Cult of Genius Is a Lie

Celebrity culture is real—and it’s really unhelpful when it comes to fostering grit.

As Nietzsche said:

“Our vanity, our self-love, promotes the cult of the genius. For if we think of genius as something magical, we are not obliged to compare ourselves and find ourselves lacking…”

Angela Duckworth echoes this when she says:

“We prefer our excellence fully formed. We prefer mystery to mundanity.”

Simply put: If I believe that Joanna Gaines was born with an innate ability to decorate houses, or that Florence Griffith Joyner was destined to dominate running, I can avoid the uncomfortable truth that greatness requires effort.

It really is just easier to believe in magic than in effort.

 

The Daily “Small Deaths” of Getting Better

One very real and kinda silly-on-the-surface quote from the book comes from dancer Martha Graham:

“Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to the paradise of that achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration. There are daily small deaths.”

Final Thoughts

So what if...

…in trying to paint a Pinterest-worthy front door, you have to paint several terrible ones (and do a lot of sanding) first?

…to run a 5K, you have to run a single block and then do a lot of walking for a while?

…to grow flowers beautifully, I have to kill far more flowers than my neighbor will ever grow?

…to be a great farmer, I have to fail at farming first?

Are you willing to do it?

Until next time, here are a couple more thoughts from Grit that I love:

“Staying on the treadmill is one thing, and I do think it’s related to staying true to our commitments even when we’re not comfortable. But getting back on the treadmill the next day, eager to try again, is in my view even more reflective of grit.”
— Angela Duckworth

“To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.”
— Angela Duckworth

Let's all fail (in order) to succeed ~amanda