Did You Make a Mistake or Fail?
What if failure wasn’t a sign that you did the wrong thing? Maybe you were doing something incredibly right. Will Gompertz makes an important distinction in his book Think Like an Artist: the difference between failure and mistakes.
He explains that a mistake happens when you are wrong. It is something that needs to be corrected.
Whereas failure is subjective, finicky, and temperamental. His example is that some of the best painters in history were considered failures because they were rejected by the leading art authority at the time, the official Salon in Paris. These artists include Monet, Manet, and Cezanne. Do we still consider them failures? Not at all.
Similarly, JK Rowling failed to get Harry Potter published by 12 publishers before she found someone to take it on. Did she fail though? Was writing the book a bad idea or a waste of time? Hardly.
And Van Gogh only sold one (known) painting in his lifetime. He was considered a failure in the “short-term” (which probably didn’t feel short-term to him at the time of his death) and one of the greatest artists in the world in the long-run. Was it a mistake for him to pick up a paint brush?
A Comfort in Disappointment
Now that I realize this distinction, I am starting to recognize the different failures and mistakes in my own life.
Recently, I was disappointed about something not panning out and caught myself thinking that it was a mistake for me to do it. And then I corrected myself. I heard Gompertz in my head, with his pointer finger raised: “You failed, but it was not a mistake to try”. Besides, our failures have a way of turning into our greatest successes, or at least leading us to them.
So, go ahead and fail. Then fail some more. One of those failures might turn into a success at some point. Realizing the distinction between mistakes and failure has been a balm to my spirit when I need it. When I fail, I am less hard on myself. I see it as less permanent.
And when I make a mistake, I am quicker to correct it because I know I was genuinely wrong. Creativity is an iterative process, as Gompertz says, and failure isn’t the opposite of success; it’s how you get there. Making a mistake, in contrast, is like a fly in the ointment of your best work and the person that you want to be.
Messy Bun Book Lover
(Originally posted on July 20, 2025)
Read Think Like an Artist by Will Gompertz → https://amzn.to/46XpkQ3
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