The crowd was being seated and everyone’s face expressed excitement about the show. As I listened to commands over the headset, I felt as if I was drowning in a pool of self-doubt and failure in a room full of people.
'What in the actual f*ck am I doing,' I thought repeatedly. I was at my dream job and doing exactly what it was I wanted to do, but I just could not seem to get it right. 'But, I do EVERYTHING right.' That day, the universe hit me with the 'this ain’t that boo boo.' As I continued to prepare for the show, I could hear another thing that I failed at.
“Bria, this is my second time asking you to move that chair!” came through loudly through the headset. I instantly shrugged my shoulders up to my ears and hurriedly went to the only place I could think that I could hide for a few minutes behind the curtain. As soon as I felt as if no one could see me, I began crying like a baby. Not because I was asked to move a chair (I’m not THAT sensitive), but because I was reminded by someone else that I failed.
Just as my cry got as ugly as the face you make when walking past a porta-potty, a coworker came and saw me. The first thing that I thought was why the heck she wasn’t working the show. She asked me what was wrong, and at that moment I was obviously a hot crying mess and I told her the truth. In an uncontrolled rush of word vomit, I babbled, “I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m doing everything wrong. I’m not doing a good job.” She grabbed me by my shoulders firmly, and looked me in my eyes and told me, “Bria, you are enough” and prayed for me.
Those three words, you are enough, struck my heart. Hard. She went back to work and I took a few seconds to get myself together. Those words continued to linger in my ear for weeks after that. It made me pose the question to myself, 'Why do we make failure so enormously colossal that it makes us feel invalidated.'
You are enough and you will always be enough. ALWAYS.
We’ve all seen and read stories about the pit of uncertainty, struggles and failure that the people we look up to endured to get to where they are. They got through it because, despite failure, they remembered to validate themselves before they received any public validation. Who are we to think that we can’t validate ourselves for being great at who we are already? The constant change of transformation is going to happen inevitably; however, the foundation of your uniqueness will always be valid.
Failure is no fun, but its necessary
If the feeling of failure did not exist, the search for purpose and fulfillment would be meaningless. Failure shares the same physiological effect as the fight or flight response. The people who are determined to achieve their ultimate goal will continue to fight despite all circumstance to obtain the fulfillment they desire. The ones who aren’t as committed will take flight on that thing they thought they wanted to do.
Failure does not equal invalidity
If failure was the underlying factor of validity, we wouldn't have electricity, wifi (lawd only knows what we would be doing without it), or everyone’s favorite, Instagram. Hell, even Auntie O (Oprah) failed before and look at her now. If she had allowed being fired from her first news job to make her feel invalid, she wouldn’t have made the huge impact that she has. Give yourself more credit! If you knew the dismal ratio of the possibility of your existence, you would not let one failure let you forget what your purpose is. If you're trying and learning something new, you will fail a few times — and that's okay.
Girl, you fell in the muds of failure, but you must choose to get up. No one needs to validate you but you. If I hadn't experienced that failure, I wouldn't be graduating in 9 days. I wouldn’t have started my YouTube series. I wouldn’t have begun to build on the things that I love to do.
Bria Renee is Multimedia Creative from Detroit, MI. She hosts a Youtube series called 'The Bria Renee Show' where she interviews women about their entrepreneurial journey with the hope to inspire others to take a leap of faith. Please check out BriaRenee.com to check out more content and the entire first season of 'The Bria Renee Show.'