What can we learn from moments of “failure”?

Today I forgot to apply the handbrake in a busy car park. I’ve spent the last 3 months driving my husband’s car on rare trips out and it has an automatic handbrake. I had learned a habit, let my autopilot take over and completely forgot that I now needed to update that behaviour to include a manual handbrake!

As I leant in to the boot to grab my shopping bags came the sudden, horrifying realisation that the car was rolling forward. Panic!

My first reaction was to run to the driver door, open it and try to pull on the car to stop it. Now I know that I’ve packed on some quarantine kilos but I was still no match for a car. What was I thinking? 

So what now? 

I had two choices - Accept my fate, my FAILURE and give up. Watch the car roll away and crash in to another car.

Or I could try something else.

I managed to squeeze myself in to the drivers seat, pull the door shut just before it hit the car beside me and yank the handbrake on. 

As I reversed back in to my parking spot I had just rolled through and out of my heart was racing and I was shaking. A lady was watching and I felt really really embarrassed. She must think I’m an absolute idiot!

But I took a couple of deep breaths. I got out of my head and in to my heart. I realised what a hero I was that I managed to not get frozen and actually resolve the situation. 

In the words of my kids school teacher I was a resilient crab. 

That moment was a lot like many other daily situations we face, we always have the choice to choose failure or to choose growth, another try, a new approach, a new lesson. 

So I remind you today that no matter what you are facing, you only fail if you choose to fail.

What could you choose instead?