How Failure Refines Purpose
I checked my email and felt my heart sink to the floor. “You’ve missed too many classes for a passing grade.” I knew this moment was coming but the finality of confirmation cemented it as my stark reality. Time stood still, silence surrounded and crushed me before the seconds began to tick away again and tears escaped my eyes. In that moment, I believed my future was ruined and I’d never fulfill the destiny or purpose I so desperately wanted. I sunk into the worn black leather couch and wished it’d swallow me whole so I wouldn’t have to face the consequences of my decisions.
When I went to college, I had the perfect vision in my head about how the journey would unfold. I’d study Art History and become a museum curator in Chicago. There was no wiggle room in my plan and I certainly didn’t consider the nagging feeling of doubt about college right after high school was trying to tell me something. Instead, I pushed that intuitive sense out of my mind and followed the “right” path.
In what I now half seriously and half jokingly call my “dark year”, I experienced crippling amounts of anxiety, depression, and the overpowering conviction that I didn’t have purpose. I stopped attending classes and sunk as deeply into that leather couch as I could. I wanted to disappear, I wanted the path to make sense, I wanted to feel like I was placed on this earth for a greater purpose and destiny but couldn’t see past the noise in my mind.
In one of my darkest moments, a very well-timed Facebook post came across my feed. It talked about how, perhaps in our most difficult moments, we’re living in the Great In-Between – that space of grief and fear when we no longer know who we are but haven’t experienced the hope and joy on the other side of the journey. The post went on to explain that potential lived just beyond this space and, soon, we’d wake to the brilliant and sparkling light of new beginnings.
I didn’t know it then but after discovering Heather Plett’s book, The Art of Holding Space, years later, I can now describe that time period as my liminal space. I’m paraphrasing but Heather refers to liminal space as the threshold of embracing a new identity. You are no longer who you used to be but are wading through the messiness of surrendering what was to embrace what will be.
I didn’t love the identity I thought I was stepping into. To me, it looked like I was a college flunk-out who would never be successful. I had been told both directly and subliminally in my past that college was the only way to land a great job. That season held the ultimate key to the future and I had just thrown it in the ocean and watched as it sank to the depths.
Now, with time and distance, I am happy to report my worst fears were baseless. When I went home to pick up the pieces of my life, I started working at a local coffee shop. During that time, I worked on a personal development blog I’d started during my dark year and did some tough internal work on my path toward healing. I met my future husband working at that coffee shop. I began to trust my intuition and, through the decision to be brave with my life and trust that internal tug, I found my way to a junior job working on social media.
From there, I gained enough experience to work for a small business helping with their marketing. One more drastic, intuitive-led decision saw me step into freelance writing work. Then, one of my freelance clients wanted to hire me full-time. Now, I can say I work as a Community Manager at a promising tech startup all because I had the courage to move beyond my failure and trust the voice that said to take risks and believe for more.
All the while, I began to fall even more in love with personal development having continued to write and ended up starting an online shop with inspiring products. After my experience, I wanted to assure others of their unique purpose and potential. That online shop led me to life coaching and I’ve been passionate about it ever since. It’s the purpose and destiny I’ve dreamed of. The best part? Everything I’ve gone through has prepared me and taught me so much of what I needed to help others.
This is a very simplified and abbreviated version of my story but it gets the point across. Your worst failures don’t define you, they refine you. Often, they dismantle long-held beliefs that won’t serve you along your path. The story becomes woven into a more beautiful tapestry of redemption and fulfillment. You may be sitting in the depths of something that feels devastating and shameful but I’m here to remind you there’s more beyond that. You’re in your own liminal space – surrendering and becoming. It’s a tough place to be more often than not but it also has so much to offer.
Failures are only a small piece of who you are, they’re not something to attach to your identity as a mark of unworthiness. Lean into what you may be learning because that’s what will lead you to purpose. Until then, my friend, show yourself grace and kindness for the road ahead. There’s a greater story being written behind the scenes and beyond the internal noise. Trust the path and keep forging bravely ahead.