We aim for Creative Cuppas to be a safe and welcoming space for the local creative workforce to meet, share and reflect.
For our first event, we focussed on the theme of ‘failure’ – an ‘f word’ that most of us have strong feelings about, and that generates a certain amount of fear.
Who’s afraid of failure?
We’ve all failed in life. Whether it’s something relatively small like messing up on a test or exam, or something more significant like giving up on a cherished longstanding ambition– we all have our own unique experiences of failure. Failure can leave a bitter taste in the mouth, along with feelings of vulnerability, shame, embarrassment, and worthlessness. These feelings are uncomfortable, so it’s natural that we often do all we can to avoid them. For some of us, this can mean pushing ourselves too hard and damaging our mental health and wellbeing in the process. For others, fear of failure can mean being afraid to give up, not owning or learning from our mistakes, or even breaking off relationships with friends or colleagues. It might even mean not trying again, and potentially missing out on future success.
If you work in the creative industries, then the conversation around failure can become even more complex, with admission of failure sometimes coming with very real risks of damaging relationships with funders or losing customer confidence.
For our first Creative Cuppa, we wanted to start trying to shift the narrative around failure in the creative industries. We were fortunate to be able to welcome Freelance Producer and Failspace Champion Tom Bevan to the event to facilitate a discussion around 'failing safely’ in the sector.
Here are my main takeaways from the event:
1. Reconfiguring failure is our collective responsibility
As Tom was presenting, I was reminded of my favourite Bruce Springsteen quote:
Nobody wins, unless everybody wins
Although in this instance, perhaps the ‘win’ would be embracing failure and reducing collective pressure and competitiveness. But this won’t work if just a few people take this approach, as that would potentially reward those who still covered-up their failings, rather than embraced them. However, if we all agree to take small steps now to address and learn from failure as an integral part of the evaluation process, then we can start to change the mindset of the sector and potentially achieve meaningful results more quickly.
2. Reconfiguring failure is also an individual responsibility
In the days following the event, I was reflecting on how we are conditioned to revel in the failure of our competitors or ‘frenemies’.
If we’re honest, I’m sure there have been times when we’ve all secretly gloated over someone else ‘mucking it up’, perhaps relieved that it wasn’t us in the firing line this time. These micro-behaviours feed the wider culture of shame around failure, and are just as important an area for change. So the next time I hear about someone else’s failure, I have resolved to ‘be kinder’, and try to offer support and productive, pro-active conversation rather than just be glad I wasn’t the one who got it wrong.
3. Failure is a spectrum
We’re getting much better at recognising nuance in society, and acknowledging that things don’t exist as binaries. Except, that is, when it comes to failure which is still perceived as the polar opposite to success. Thinking of failure and success as either end of a sliding scale really opened my eyes to the degrees of ‘blended’ or partial success that can exist. Whilst we all naturally want to strive for the gold standard and smash all our targets, the event was a timely reminder that success, or indeed failure, is rarely absolute and happens in degrees. I am committing to thinking about how I can build this thinking into the planning for our Creative Cardiff activities and projects in the future.
Find out more about the FailSpace project, and access free resources to support your practice.
Our next Creative Cuppa
We’d love to see you at our next Creative Cuppa, ‘Who’s afraid of writing?’, on 2 March 14:00. The booking link will be shared week commencing 13 February.
