It’s OK to mess up

As a millennial parent, I watch 22 hours of Instagram parenting videos every day. Most are a blur of sleep hacks and “gentle hands,” but some also have nuggets of relationship advice.

In one video, Sara Blakely (the founder of Spanx!) describes how her dad celebrated her failures while she was growing up. 

Blakely’s dad encouraged her to fail, repeatedly and often. 

He would ask her, “What did you fail at this week?” And then he’d high-five her if she’d messed up at something.

As an adult, Blakely felt comfortable facing challenges because her dad had helped her redefine failure as not trying, instead of focusing on outcomes.

Can you imagine how liberating it must be to not fear failure? 

How much less stress and judgment would you put on yourself if you didn’t worry about being perfect, but instead embraced your mistakes?

Now imagine if you approached your relationship the same way.

Messing up is normal

Recently Sunaina and I were rushing to an event with our toddler. After 3 hours of getting our kid ready for a 5-minute drive (I’m barely exaggerating), we realized that Sunaina had left our toddler’s snack at home.

For a split second I was angry at Sunaina for the delay and I shot her a dirty look. As she left to get the snack, I felt ashamed of my reaction. 

Sunaina didn’t deserve my anger, and this wasn’t the first time I’d gotten angry over something small. I was failing to be the understanding partner I try to be.

I could feel myself on the verge of spiraling into self-blame and self-judgment when I remembered the Sara Blakely video and its message.

Yeah, I had messed up by giving Sunaina the dirty look, but it was OK to mess up. 

I’m SUPPOSED to mess up, I reminded myself. 

Remembering that helped me let go of my self-judgment and the pressure I was putting on myself to be perfect. I felt lighter – and ready to apologize to Sunaina.

“I didn’t mean to make that face at you,” I told her. “You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry, and I’ll try to do better next time.”

This minor hiccup could’ve easily turned into a fight (we’ve done it before!), but this time I was able to put my screwup into perspective so I could quickly admit my mistake and we could move on.

Knowing (you’re going to mess up) is half the battle

The next time you mess up in your relationship, try reminding yourself that mistakes are inevitable. 

You could say what I said: “I'm supposed to mess up.” Or you could have fun and say something like: 

• “All part of the plan.”

• “As it was foretold.”

• “Humans gonna human.”

Whatever you choose to say, I hope you have empathy for yourself, because messing up is scary. It pokes holes in our self-image, which can easily lead to self-judgment and self-blame.

Messing up can be even scarier when it affects our partners, because we care how they see us. 

We can be so afraid of being judged by our partners (and ourselves) that we’ll turn minor hiccups into major issues to avoid looking like screwups.

And who wants to do that??

So I hope that Sara Blakely’s story can help you see that true failure isn’t messing up – it’s not trying to do better the next time.

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