SUCCESS & FAILURE

Over the last few months during lockdown, I have had more time to think, more time to feel and more time to reflect on the last 23 years of my life than ever before. This has led me to recall the points in my life where I have felt like a failure, where I have not exceeded expectations, but instead fallen flat on my face. Of course, we associate failure with negativity and while everyone has to fail in life a few times, I've begun to realise these points in our lives we deem to be failures ultimately lead to something incredible, which some would call a success. In fear of sounding a little too like Elizabeth Day and her brilliant book and podcast, 'How To Fail', I thought I would mention she is, of course, a huge inspiration for this week's blog.

I am a firm believer in 'everything happens for a reason', so whether your relationship ends, your fired from your job, or you didn't get into your top university choice, the world has a wonderful way of giving back when you least expect it. Of course at the time it never feels like a success or a step towards the next thing, and it's usually months or even years later when you finally realise it was in fact a lucky escape that led you onto bigger and better things.

Most of you are probably thinking, how can someone reflect on their life or have multiple failures when they are still practically a child and have hardly lived? I agree to an extent, but I like to view it as awareness and personal growth, and enable myself to continue living and succeeding without making the same mistakes twice. I have a desire to create a life for myself filled with happiness, success, love and accomplishment, and by understanding my failures I am in a better position to move forward and do so.

I haven't spoken hugely in my blogs about my music career, or should I say failed music career, because it is no longer the driving force and ambition in my life. But that's not to say there wasn't a time when I felt my only path in life was to record music, write songs and fill concert halls at The O2 and The Royal Albert Hall. For pretty much my entire childhood and teenage years I was completely and utterly obsessed with singing, I sang all day and all night, spent hours at the piano, and it was the only focus I had or career I ever contemplated. I grew up with a serious case of tunnel vision, always adamant that university was not an option for me. I slightly kick myself at times for this because without a degree or anything to fall back on I automatically made it harder for myself when I did inevitably give up music as a career.

I studied at The Academy of Contemporary Music. I thought this was going to be the beginning of my music career, the beginning of exciting success and the place I would meet other musicians to write with, help me grow and form bands to go out and perform with. Sadly, it was quite the opposite! I found myself feeling like a total outsider for the first time in my life, I didn't have a strong group of friends around me, we came from totally different worlds. I felt uninspired by what I was learning and eventually it meant that music and performing became more of a chore than a love, so I made the decision to part ways with my career in music.

This was my first real failure. I had never given up so easily in my life but I always knew it was the right thing. As hard as I sometimes find to admit it, I was never cut out for the music industry. You have to be tough and hard as nails, which particularly at that time in my life, I was not. I was struggling with a never ending eating disorder and battling depression on a daily basis and it wasn't easy. In all honesty I didn't try hard enough to make a real go of it. I didn't have the energy to fight everyday for my career and I wasn't motivated enough. To survive in the music industry you have to be prepared to live on nothing and busk or gig your way through life, living in tiny accommodation, and working nights in bars, and I was never cut out for it. It may be mildly embarrassing to admit but I am too materialistic for a career in music, because success doesn't happen over night. I wasn't prepared to struggle in my career when I was already struggling so much in my personal life.

There is a fundamental flaw in accepting failure at times. Believing everything happens for a reason is brilliant, but it does mean I have a tendency to stop caring or worrying if something does go wrong and putting a little too much faith in the world! It's so easy to sit back and let life take it's course but no one ever really gets what they want without putting up a fight. I've realised that you really do have to work bloody hard to succeed, whether that's with friends, family, relationships or careers. Nothing worth having in life comes without working at it every day.

I think what I find most frustrating looking back on my younger self is my inability to see the wider picture. Of course I don't regret poorly attempting a career in music, but what I do regret is not helping myself and getting some form of qualification to fall back on. Leaving music college and embarking on a secretarial business course for a year was by far the best decision I have made to date, and it has subsequently enabled me to start a career in London as a Personal Assistant and get a foot in the door, but I wish more than anything that I had actually considered University. Don't get me wrong, getting a degree is not the be all and end all of life, but with the ambition of having a career in Journalism, I have realised that doing so without a degree in English or Publishing has made it significantly harder for myself to enter this industry the mainstream way. Whilst I feel frustrated I didn't get a degree in Journalism, I also can't exactly blame myself as it's not something I remotely considered or even understood until about two years ago when I started this blog.

If my career history is starting to bore you, the same can be applied to romance - which we all know is my favourite topic. In order for us to meet the right person or 'the one' surely all our prior relationships inevitably have to end? While it may not feel like it at the time, relationships only end if they are not meant to be. My love life may not be the best for this in terms of long relationships but I like to think each failed attempt with a different man gets me one step closer to finding the right one. These failures have not only taught me what I want from a relationship and what I don't want, but has taught me to be happy and love myself before anyone else which is the most important lesson of all. It's really hard to take advice from your own experiences but take it from a friend instead. Watching someone you care about go through a break up is heartbreaking and even when they are so hurt and upset, you always tell them it will get better and it does! Fast forward two years and you see them madly in love and happier than ever with someone new who brings more love and joy to their life than before. It may not feel like it at the time but there's always a reason and it almost always leads to a positive change.

As humans we like to separate things into categories. We put everything down as a success or a failure, and I think this can have a negative impact on our lives and what we ultimately achieve in them. Instead of viewing our life as this, it makes more sense to me to view each event or phase of our life as a learning opportunity. While I'm conscious of sounding a little bit too 'hippy-dippy', it seems to me if we put our life into boxes we are setting ourselves up for failure. If failure doesn't exist and we use our strength to turn it into something positive surely all our lives would be happier and ultimately more successful? I know eradicating failure completely is unrealistic as it is necessary in order for us to grow as individuals, but rather than looking at it in a negative light we should feel happy that we tried in the first place. No one succeeds in life without being knocked back a few times, getting up and trying again.

You can't plan out your life, you can't change things that happened ten years ago, and you have no way of knowing what will inspire you in five years time. I have no idea where I will be five years from now and I can almost guarantee life will throw a few rocks at me most would deem to be failures, but I know that regardless of my career or love life, I will be happy and it will be the right thing for me.

Lots of love x