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Keep pushing: 3 reasons why good things happen to those fail forward
Will Smith celebrated his 50th birthday by bungee jumping from a helicopter over the Grand Canyon. Will ended up jumping 550 feet and was held by 200 feet of active cord, not to mention that heli-jumping is one of the more dangerous types of bungee jumping because there’s no solid foundation.
The Fresh Prince star has become a sensation on Instagram of late, showing us common folk how regular-degular our lives are with unfair cool jaw-dropping content, but that doesn’t mean this feat was a cake walk.
Will was dared to do the jump by Yes Theory but admits to having a “lifetime of feeling squashed and squelched and controlled by fear.” After his dad died a little over a year ago he’s been inclined to live more freely, and he wouldn’t let some jitters stand in between he and his goal. Will said after the jump:
“You cannot experience the joy the is intended for you in life if you don’t go. Life is hard. you might get hurt. Your heart might get broken. But you still gotta commit…Don’t hesitate—GO.”
We all have been at the crossroads of comfort and risk — standing between familiarity and going for it all. We all have had to decide at one time and time whether we should stay where we are or try something new that could change our lives forever.
What Will Smith was talking about after had jumped from hundreds of feet in the air — that feeling of having accomplished something you were uncertain about — is one that we all deserve to feel and is one that a lot of us are standing directly on the other side of.
When we commit and go full-on and completely fall into the direction our intuition is telling us to go and when we allow our hearts to lead us, we allow ourselves to live and to be one with the flow of the universe.
As Will said, it is hard; it does take faith and it isn’t always pretty. But on the other hand, you’re allowing yourself to set new dreams and you’re giving your imagination the jurisdiction to explore new terrain.
It’s in you for a reason
When it comes to fully commit to something new, whether it be a lifestyle, practice, or anything for that matter, it’s important to remember that the ambition came from somewhere.
I don’t think we appreciate our desires enough. The mere existence of an urge — a longing for, well, anything — is a blessing that thousands of apathetic, unmotivated and even suicidal people long for.
We have to respect these impulses. Your desire to pick up and instrument, travel the world or move to a different city, should be contingent one thing, and that’s your own self. Don’t be afraid to go for it, it’s in you for a reason.
Failing is okay
A huge reason many of us fail to commit to our dreams and desires is that we’re afraid to fall flat on our faces. But falling on your face is good.
Perfection is a myth. We’re supposed to get bruises and scrapes; we’re supposed to fall down and get up. That’s how we gain experience and grow.
We stop learning when don’t allow ourselves to fall. It’s when we’re doing everything right all the time and are the leaders of the pack and when we’re comfortable when stop growing.
Failing to learn to code or failing to get a job position or failing an entrance exam, is not as bad as continuing to do the same thing for the rest of your life. The sooner we get over the stigma of imperfection, the sooner we can master new crafts.
Doing nothing is going backward
There are tons of people in life who will grow old having never challenged themselves to go higher, push farther or to dig deeper. There are individuals who, despite it not being their dream, settled on a life that provides and does just enough.
These people think they’re maintaining, but in reality, they’re going backward.
No progress is backward progress; unless we’re evolving we’re dying, and no one wants to spend life as a zombie. So if we don’t ever commit to that thing we’ve always been prompted to do, we’re just withering instead.
It’s hardly failing when you’re at least making an attempt. If anything, it’s failing forward. And when we ditch the fear of not getting it right directly out the gate we leave ourselves open to life’s endless possibilities.