SHE Reads – Autumn ReflectionBook: How to Fail by Elizabeth Day

This autumn in SHE Reads, we spent time with a book that landed at exactly the right moment. As the season invited us to slow down, let go and gather what matters, Elizabeth Day’s How to Fail helped us rethink what failure actually is.

Rather than treating failure as a verdict on who we are, we began to see it as part of a much more human and much kinder story.

Failure as information

We kept coming back to one simple idea:

Failure is information. It is data gathering.

Instead of asking, What is wrong with me? we started asking:

• What did this experience show me about what I need?

• What boundary wanted to be there that I did not know about yet?

• What part of me is asking for something different?

That small shift, from judgement to curiosity, softened a lot of old self-criticism and opened up space for compassion.

Self-worth beyond achievement

Many of us recognised the lifelong pattern of feeling we have to prove ourselves, through work, study, parenting, productivity, or being the one who holds it all together.

One line from our discussion stayed with us:

You are worthy, even when nothing is being proved or produced.

We explored what it might mean to hold self-worth beyond achievement, to stand in our lives without constantly needing the next milestone or the next person’s approval to feel enough.

Relationships, boundaries and not shrinking

The most animated part of our conversation was about relationships and dating. We laughed and winced at the many ways we have tried to be less, or different, to keep someone else comfortable. Changing how we dress, what we admit to liking, even how much of ourselves we reveal.

The book helped us name something important:

• Relationships do not fail because we are unlovable.

• They often “fail” because they reveal what we still need to learn about ourselves.

• We do not have to outsource our identity to people who do not really see us.

Out of that came a quiet fierceness. A deeper commitment to authenticity, to boundaries and to trusting that we are allowed to take up space exactly as we are.

Seasonal living and what we are carrying forward

Alongside the book, we noticed how deeply we are seasonal beings. As daylight faded, our bodies asked for rest while our minds tried to carry on like it is June. Naming this helped many of us release the pressure to be endlessly productive.

We closed our autumn season by asking:

• What am I taking forward from this season?

• What am I ready to leave behind?

For some, it was people pleasing or over-giving. For others, it was the belief that failure is final rather than formative.

What we are reading next

We are now moving away from organising SHE Reads by seasons and into a monthly rhythm.

That means our next book is not the start of a “winter season”, it is simply our December read:

Katherine May’s Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, a book about the necessary winters of our lives and the quiet wisdom they carry.

It still feels like the perfect next step.

From reframing failure to honouring rest, retreat and inner repair.