I’m a huge Elizabeth Day fan and was so happy to see that she’s got a new book out. Even more happy to get an early copy via netgalley 🤗 Reading it was like one long episode of How To Fail but with all the best guests and the best advice and takeaways!

Elizabeth Day shares the seven failure principles in her latest book, recurring themes, advice and insight that have cropped up through the seasons of the podcast. I read this in one go, and finished feeling less alone in the struggles of thoughts and failures I’ve not dealt with or that I’m faced with just now. Also prepared with a few strategies of changing my mindset which I’ll be giving a go 👊

For anyone facing something tough just now, give this book a go and I think it help get into a better headspace and that every human has those feelings/thoughts and failures. It’s out soon, 1 October and my inbox is always open as a chat can do wonders too.

And I LOVED the chapter combining the three failures that each guest sends in, such an insight into the show and a behind the scenes look at the episodes I love.

I really love the How To Fail podcast and this is an inspirational book on the same theme. It will provide useful words of encouragement to many people.

Do you sometimes refrain from doing something for fear of failure? Are some of the most embarrassing moments in your life still haunting you? If so, you may feel better after reading Failosophy by Elizabeth Day. This short and no-fuss self-help book contains some useful tips and anecdotes to help you accept your shortcomings – and even see them as opportunities to improve.

In Failosophy, Day, a journalist in the UK, shares her personal experience of failure (mostly in relation to her private life) as well as the main takeaways from the interviews she carried out with various individuals in the context of her podcast series How to fail. Her approach is down-to-earth and anecdotal, with no scientific pretence. But her “7 principles of failosophy” provide some useful tips on how to deal with failure in all areas of life.

Among the advice that struck a chord with me:
1. Remember that failures have made you who you are, but they do not define you.
2. Try to be proud of how you managed to survive your failures.
3. The antidote to shame is to share your bad experiences with others who had equally embarrassing stories (“When you destigmatise failure, it loses its power to harm you”).
4. See failure as “data acquisition”. Scientists work by trial and error. See every failure (for example every break-up) as a way to eliminate an option that doesn’t work for you and to get closer to the one that will.
5. Do not expect too much of yourself. Make sure that what you aim at is what you really want, and not what society, family or friends expect of you.
6. There is no such thing as a “future you”. Try to focus on who you are now, and what makes you happy now. Thoughts about the future should be realistically grounded in the present.
7. To better handle crises, get rid of fear… and of your ego!

That said, the value of the book primarily resides in the personal stories which illustrate these principles. Although I found the “catalogue of failures” in annex a bit messy, the main chapters of the book were a pleasant and invigorating read.

Failosophy is Elizabeth Day’s brilliant guide to coping with failure. While interviewing guests for her podcast ‘How To Fail’, she came up with the 7 principles of failure - statements that are both comforting and painfully honest. I’ve attended a few of her live talks where she discusses these principles, and every time I felt like a big sister had passed on her wisdom to me. Having them written now means I’ll get to revisit them whenever I feel the need to - because failure is universal. I’d recommend this book to people who like to reflect on their lives and to people who’ve had a hard time recently and need some perspective. She concludes by saying: “life is neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but a miraculous collage of myriad different experiences which we can strive to meet equally with grace” (117).

What a brilliant approach to failure! There is nothing wrong when we fail, is only human and we can all learn from that.

Different examples, solution and fresh view on our flaws and fails.

Highly recommended.