<p>Who is the author of How to Fail?</p>

<p>How to Fail is written by Elizabeth Day.</p>

Motivation & Inspiration

How to Fail Book Summary - How to Fail Book explained in key points

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How to Fail summary

Name: How to Fail
Rating: 3.8 (165 reviews)
Author: Elizabeth Day

Elizabeth Day

Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong

3.8 (165 ratings)

21 mins

Brief summary

'How to Fail' by Elizabeth Day is a memoir and self-help book that acknowledges the inevitability of failure and offers insights into how to learn from it. It encourages the reader to embrace imperfection and use failure as a springboard for personal growth.

Topics

Memoirs Women's Stories Self-Help Emotional Intelligence Success Friendship Dating Meaningful Living

Table of Contents

How to Fail
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Start seeing those mistakes for the learning opportunities they really are.

Many people think that failure is not an option. But what if it’s actually the best option?

Of course, when you’re in the moment, failing at something is painful – whether it’s a relationship falling apart, a job going down the tubes, or an important exam being flunked. Yet, it may well be that these wrong turns will eventually prove to be the right turns all along.

As author Elizabeth Day found out by looking back on her own life and in talking to a wide range of people on her popular podcast, How to Fail With Elizabeth Day, we often benefit greatly when things go wrong. For example, how many people have panicked over losing their job, only for it to be the catalyst to finding a much better job that they would never have looked for otherwise?

When something goes wrong, it can often be a sign that we needed to learn something. And as Day has experienced, these lessons can be very important in revealing who we are, what’s important to us and how we can lead a better life.

In these blinks, you’ll find

why a failed exam can be a wake-up call;
what the most narcissistic exercise class Day ever attended was; and
why we should listen to unhappy celebrities.

Failing at fitting in can teach you how to be resilient and prepare you for the future.

Primary school can be a challenging experience for a lot of kids, but if you were a young English child growing up in Northern Ireland during the eighties, it was probably extremely rough.

This was the case for the author, Elizabeth Day. Though Day was born in England, her family moved to Northern Ireland when her father took a job at a hospital near the town of Derry. Since this was during the Troubles, the English were seen as the “hated occupiers,” and Day’s accent was enough to make her fellow students dislike her.

Though her parents raised her to have a strong sense of individuality, at school, Day longed simply to fit in and to this end even tried to talk as little as possible. But given the circumstances, it was next to impossible for her to fit in, and the teasing got so bad that she succeeded in getting her parents to send her to a boarding school in England instead.

While failing to fit in was a terrible experience, it led Day to learn some beneficial skills. By keeping quiet, Day became an adept observer of human behavior, a skill that came in handy later in her career as a journalist and novelist.

Day has spoken to many successful people who grew up alienated or bullied at school, like American actress Christina Hendricks and Guyana-born political campaigner Gina Miller, both of whom learned how to be resilient and determined as a result.

Hendricks was so bullied in school that her classmates weren’t above spitting on her. But it caused her to respond in ways that may have actually helped her future career. For starters, she adopted a new persona, dressing in black and wearing Doc Martens boots as a form of armor against the bullies. She also found sanctuary in the school’s drama department, where she could take on even more personas and let loose her feelings through acting.

As for Miller, her boarding school tormentors went so far as to steal the bottle of her mother’s perfume that helped keep her from becoming too homesick. But instead of getting angry, Miller developed a resilience that took the form of determined goodwill, having learned that bullies are routinely disarmed by kindness. This lesson served her well later in life, providing her with the resilience needed to cope with the death threats she received after questioning the legality of Britain’s Brexit plan in court in 2016.

Failing tests can teach you a lot, and your twenties are a good time for messing up.

Day’s older sister was so good at driving and marksmanship that she earned the nickname Jane Bond. So, when Day could finally take her own driving test, she was crushed when her small mistake in shifting into gear on a steep hill resulted in a fail.

Ultimately though, the failed test was a benefit in disguise since it allowed Day to approach the second test with more confidence and feeling she had nothing to lose. As a result, she not only aced the test, she also learned that test scores are often arbitrary. With so little separating the two tests, she could see that it was all up to the instructor and what they felt was good enough on any given day.

Failing at relationships and dating can make you more knowledgeable about yourself.

Between her twenties and early thirties, Day moved directly from a few long-term relationships into a marriage. And despite the strides women had made over the previous few decades, all her relationships could have existed in the 1970s, since she was doing the shopping, cooking and cleaning – all the while holding down a full-time job.

Essentially, Day was failing at her relationships. While she was telling herself that working and doing all the chores made her a strong woman, she now knows that she was really treating the men in her life better than she was treating herself. And during this time, her own sense of self-worth was circling the drain.

Only the rich and famous can live up to celebrity standards.

It’s difficult for any woman to live in a culture where the impossibly flawless and thin bodies of female celebrities are worshipped non-stop in all media. But Day knows first hand that it’s impossible for anyone with a normal life to look like these celebrities.

This comforting knowledge was gained after she took on a commissioned job with the Sunday Times to spend a week living like Gwyneth Paltrow, whose online Goop empire suggests that you too can be as happy and pretty as she is, with the right hundred-dollar face cream, yoga pants and recipe book.

Friendships aren’t easy, but they can actually be more rewarding than romantic relationships.

When Day was in primary school, she had a close friend named Susan. They did everything together, whether it was acting in school plays, going bowling or creating dance routines to their favorite ABBA songs. Susan was not only fun; she was also excellent at math and art – two things Day could never claim as strengths.

But then, one day, Rachel arrived. Rachel was also great at math, art and just about everything else. Soon, Day was only able to look on in despair as Susan started spending more time with Rachel and less time with her.

Missing out on having children can be a painful experience, but it can be overcome.

Day had always imagined having kids of her own. As a teen, she remembers having fun with her sister as they picked out possible baby names. So it’s safe to say that one of the most difficult ordeals in Day’s life has been “failing” at babies, and coping with the fact that she might never be able to get pregnant.

In the “Life Skills” class she took at boarding school, Day and her fellow female classmates learned about birth control and the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases. Yet they never learned about what really goes on in a woman’s body when it comes to fertility.

For generations, women have been expected to fail at anger, but this is finally changing.

Along with more women choosing not to have kids, there’s also been a change in the way women are dealing with their anger.

For a long time, whenever a woman displayed anger, it was taken as some sort of character defect on their part. They were treated as irrational, laughable or even dangerous. At one point in history, angry women were even burned at the stake as witches. At another point, an angry woman by the name of Rosa Parks was recast in the history books as being a demure lady who simply refused to give up her seat in a bus to a white man – even though Parks described herself as angry, and rightfully so.

Failing at success isn’t a contradiction; it’s a common occurrence that teaches us that material things aren’t what’s important.

When people hear that a “successful” person is unhappy, often some serious eye-rolling takes place. How can someone with adoring fans or millions of dollars complain about anything? Obviously, they must be completely ungrateful to think they have the right to be unhappy.

However, this response misses out on a major issue. Namely, if people aren’t happy with fame and money, maybe we’re putting too much value on such things?

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What is How to Fail about?

How to Fail (2019) is an honest and revealing look at the abundant rewards that come from making it through the toughest of times. Author Elizabeth Day takes us through many of the formative events in her life that some could call failures, yet she is nonetheless grateful for. Many fear failure like the plague, but it is often unavoidable – and for good reason too, because if we didn’t fail, we wouldn’t learn the many important lessons that make us smarter and better at living life.

How to Fail Review

How to Fail (2018) by Elizabeth Day is a thought-provoking exploration of failure and its transformative power. Here are three reasons why this book is worth reading:

The relatable stories and experiences shared throughout the book make it incredibly relatable and comforting, reminding us that failure is a universal experience.
Through examining failure, Day offers insights and lessons that can help reshape our perspective on success and motivate us to embrace our vulnerabilities.
With its playful tone and humorous anecdotes, the book takes a refreshing approach to a topic often seen as negative, making it a compelling and enjoyable read.

Best quote from How to Fail

Yes, you might be hurt and heartbreak is always shattering, but it is never fatal and it does get better.

—Elizabeth Day

Who should read How to Fail?

Anyone going through a tough time
People looking to rebound from a failed project
Women thinking about starting a family

About the Author

Elizabeth Day is a best-selling author and the host of the popular interview podcast How to Fail With Elizabeth Day. She is also an award-winning journalist, having been a staff writer at the Observer and subsequently contributing to the Telegraph, The Times and Harper’s Bazaar. Her novels include Scissors, Paper, Stone (2012), Home Fires (2013) and The Party (2017).

Categories with How to Fail

Motivation & Inspiration Biography & Memoir

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