How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong

by Elizabeth Day

‘I realised the extent of my internalised misogyny when I realised last year that every time I go to the gym and I see another woman working out I will always look at how long she’s run for … And if I see that someone has burnt twice the amount of calories as me in 10 per cent of the time I will immediately sort of hate myself and think that I’m this embarrassment and I shouldn’t really be in the gym and what’s the point of working out? ‘You know, I sort of hate the woman [as if ] just by being there she’s sort of boasting and lording it over me. And then if I see that I’ve done even fractionally better than another person, I feel incredibly smug. ‘And this is not a conscious thing, you know, I had to really catch myself and I was like, “Oh, you do this with every single woman in the gym!” And if you feel like you’ve succeeded more than another woman, even though in your conscious, compassionate, rational mind you know that none of that matters, something in me gets this real kind of kick of, “Oh, I’m doing better than her,” and it’s horrible when you realise that. And I think a lot of the journey is just kind of catching those thoughts.’