AS CHILDREN, WE are taught that it’s OK to make mistakes. 

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Teachers told us that it’s from mistakes which we learn, parents echoed the sentiment at every available opportunity and hell, even The Simpsons reminded us that mistakes are why pencils come with erasers.

Mistakes are normal, mistakes are necessary and mistakes are certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

And yet the older we get, the more we agonise over the mistakes we have made, their potential social and professional implications, and the myriad ways they might ultimately expose us.

The idea which we internalise as children becomes somewhat diluted the older we get and the more exposed we become to other people’s seemingly blatant success.

Mistakes meant a lesser degree, mistakes meant being passed over for promotion, and mistakes meant you would ultimately tread a path not traversed by the winners in society.

Slowly but surely, as the boom years receded, priorities shifted and the ‘having-it-all and doing-it-all’ trope became ever more tired, we welcomed a narrative that reminded us that simply doing our best – mistakes and all – was not without merit.

And while we might ostensibly (and reluctantly) accept these mistakes and failures, how many of us actively celebrate their importance?

For many of us, the idea that a potential mistake might result in a fork in the road which will ultimately force us down an undesirable route is something we still fear, so to celebrate them goes against the grain in many ways.

The ‘How To Fail with Elizabeth Day’ podcast returns to our childhood understanding of mistakes, and explores the myriad ways that mistakes, and indeed failures, serve us, educate us and ultimately fortify us for the future.

Already in its third season, the eponymously-named show describes itself as “a podcast that celebrates the things that haven’t gone right”.

Ostensibly a wellness podcast as it urges the listener to reframe their perspective on life’s ‘failings’ and use a positive lens with which to examine life’s mistakes, it is devoid of the over-sentimentality you might have come to associate with many other wellness broadcasts.

Elizabeth’s guests, who have included Lily Allen, Dolly Alderton, Pandora Sykes, David Baddiel and Deborah Frances-White to name but a few, reflect on a particular mistake(s) which ultimately paved the way for a greater understanding of themselves, their priorities and their approach to life.

Or as the podcast itself explains ‘they explore what their failures taught them about how to succeed better.”

Earnest in its delivery, it is also sharp, inspirational and hugely relatable, and encourages the listener to re-examine the incidents or periods in their life they have so easily written off as a failure.

If you have found other feel-good or wellness podcasts too sentimental or mawkish in their delivery, then How To Fail may well be the departure you need from the ‘norm’.

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