Flailing — Not Failing — When Facing Challenges

The sun is bright, the light scattering diamonds across the water, and the waves leave us with our feet dangling high above the sand and coral reefs below. We are suspended in the swells, holding only onto our boogie boards. It’s a beach day on the island of Kauai. My niece, Harley, a day away from 13 and all lanky limbs and bright eyes, is between me and my cousin, Andrea, as we try to instruct her how to balance her body on the board, feet kicking below the water, and eyes on the beach as we try to help her “feel” for the break of the wave to catch it. We yell for her to paddle with her arms. She moves with the wave … for three seconds.

Harley sails into the air, loses her board, and scrambles to get back on. She comes up sputtering, unable to gain balance for what must seem like a few minutes (it’s really five seconds) and then turns to us and says, “Help, I’m failing!” Andrea spins her around and tries to get her recentered, and, in reference to her long swinging arms and legs, I tell her, “Stop. Just stop moving. Take a breath.” When she pauses, the whole world seems to pause, and I smile, “Actually, you’re flailing, not failing.”

It dawned on me in that moment that she is not the only one. With all the challenges we have experienced in the past two years, it is not surprising that we are flailing! Like Harley, many of us have been trying to keep our heads above water and survive the rip currents that often arrive in the forms of loss, grief, anxiety, and heartbreak.

Why Flail?

Flailing is defined as thrashing out, waving wildly or to strike or lash out violently. It doesn’t sound that good. In fact, it’s gotten a bad rap for keeping us in one place, indecisive and moving but getting nowhere. Let’s take a moment to reframe. This definition tells me that flailing is fighting; it’s trying to stay on your feet or catch your balance. Flailing is a sign of struggle. As an activist, there is no better action to me than struggle. It means there is something worth fighting for, and we are still willing to keep going. In some instances, flailing can look a lot like dancing.

In fact, military interprofessional health teams that are sent out to do humanitarian work are educated in the "flail-not-fail" model, whose objective is to instill a growth mindset. This model poses alternative options and opportunities for change. Performance artists describe flailing as a kinetic construct that represents the body's attempt to keep from failing and giving in. In Yapp’s article on performative impulse, she likens flailing to surviving. Healthcare workers in Brazil recently described stressed hospitals as flailing rather than failing because they felt that there was still room to improve.

The Resilience Factor

What decides whether we flail or fail? Research tells us that a large factor is resilience. Resilience is attitudes and behaviors that enable coping within stressful situations or negative life events. The level of a person’s resilience has been shown not only to be a strong sign of psychological well-being but also to be correlated with such things as lowered anxiety and increased efficacy.

There are some key things we can do that can help build our resiliency:

1. Connect with your tribe. Studies show that social supports — no matter what age group — help build resiliency. In-person connections show the best results, but quality virtual experiences are also important. In the workplace, for instance, virtual support groups such as “Fill Your Cup,” which gave nurses the opportunity to connect with each other, express their feelings, and share coping strategies, increased levels of resilience.
2. Anticipate the challenges. Just as we told Harley to look for the next wave, studies have shown that realistic understandings of difficult situations help us to prepare. The more in control we feel, the more resilient we are. For instance, emergency room physician education has adopted simulation environments that help doctors work through not just the skills they need but also their physical and psychological responses to possible situations. The more realistic the simulations, the better. Those of us without that type of simulation technology can still engage in realistic anticipation by thinking through future scenarios and charting out our possible responses and options. The key word here is “realistic,” which helps to mitigate any catastrophizing and anxiety that might occur.
3. Practice social justice. Research from Chicago’s largest early childhood and youth development nonprofit, the Carole Robertson Center, demonstrated that service to others helped build resiliency. A study from Florida, which highlighted mentoring and leadership programs that specifically supported mentorship of Black students (particularly Black male students with Black male educator role models and mentors) and also transparently tackled the issues of race and disparities, found that students who participated in mentorship programs had higher resilience rates than those who did not participate — even if they were virtual after-school sessions.

Regaining Balance

There is a lot of business literature about “failing forward,” and, as a professor of social impact design, I support any effort forward. Failing is an opportunity to try again and to grow stronger. But, before we get there, wouldn’t it be good to do everything we can before the failure happens? Swing our arms, strengthen our core, brace our legs in a fighting stance? Let’s flail first.

By now, Harley is calmly floating on her board. She and Andrea turn lazy circles, and, every so often, when there is a wave, they don’t blink as it passes, carrying them upward, over, and back, even when it seems like it could carry them under. There is a stability there that didn’t exist earlier. I say, “Harley, you’re getting the hang of it.” And she gives me a teenage shrug, “We made it to the calm part of the ocean.” It’s then that I notice that Andrea is holding onto the edge of Harley’s board, and I give her a knowing look. It’s OK to flail. We learn from it. Eventually we get to the calm. And it helps if we have someone to hold onto and support us.