Today we’re talking failures.
(Let me say right now that I’m not talking about HUGE failures, I’m talking about day-to-day stuff like forgetting to pick up your daughter from volleyball practice, bringing a pie to the cookie bake sale, ripping your pants at a concert, or running out of gas driving your kid to Kindergarten.)
We all fail on a daily basis. I shut my hair in my car door, fail to clean all the dishes, pipe a few messy cupcakes, eat a little too much ice cream…. It happens. We all fail.
Now, here’s the point where you would expect me to insert a bunch of famous quotes on failing from Thomas Edison, Michael Jordan or Henry Ford. But I will happily spare you that history lesson.
So this is my question to you: What is it about the idea of failing that puts us all on edge?
I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so if it’s not perfect, I don’t want to claim it as mine. But over the last year, I’ve realized a really important thing.
Failing can bring people together, if we let it.
The key word there is IF. We can pout and moan and give up and cover up…or we can laugh, move on or even share our failures. It can bring people together. Think about it. When someone sees me fall on my face in the snow or watches me “push” on the door instead of “pull,” we can choose to be embarrassed or we can laugh and that person will laugh with us because I’m sure he’s done the exact same thing. It doesn’t matter if you two have never met, because now you have that glorious memory together of you making a fool of yourself. If you run out of gas taking your kid to school, you both will remember that day forever but you get to pick to put it in a bad or bright light. Because if you hadn’t run out of gas, it would have been just another forgotten day. You sometimes make more memories together failing than being perfect.
So why do we all try so hard to pretend to be perfect? We only post about our accomplishments, we only instagram the beautiful parts of our lives, we only tweet the witty side. If failing brings us all together, why are we so afraid of sharing it?
On this blog, I tend to only post pretty photos, right? It’s what people want to see. If I showed them an ugly cupcake they wouldn’t want to bake it and I would have to get a real job. Just to mix it up a little, here are a few failures that I hid from you.
Alright, this one might not look that bad but it was really annoying. I wanted to cut this beautiful slice out of this Banana Blueberry Bundt Cake but when it lift up the piece I realized I didn’t cut all the way through. So I got two pieces instead. Lame. Well, I ditched the piece, threw in some fruit and took the photo of the full Bundt. Still not the prettiest cuts on the Bundt but I can’t get everything perfect. Unfortunately.
I was so frustrated during this cake I refused to take photos of all the disasters happening I first poured over a chocolate glaze on this Chocolate Bacon Bundt but it was way too thick. I wouldn’t stream down the sides, it just sat there on top laughing at me! So I popped it in the oven thinking it would melt the glaze thinner. Nope. It bubbled up instead. I did my best to take off the glaze and then pour more over. But it was still really obvious that something went wrong. So I only really photographed the few good spots of the cake to post.
So the photo on the right is from my Cookbook and it’s the page of the book they show on Amazon and they put on several publicity posters. So every time I see that page, I really see what’s on the right. Because I know what really happened to that cupcake. I tripped walking back up the stairs to the kitchen and this little guy took a tumble.
Don’t worry, I saved the best for last. This photo wasn’t taken 10 or 30 minutes after I took photos for this Blackberry Forest Cake, this is actually what the cake looked like from the start. Total user error. I put the cake together and then I wanted to put more filling in the layers. So of course the cake broke into pieces when I started trying to take the layers apart. It was a disaster. BUT there was one side that was great for photos.
You’re going to mess up no matter what you do. Deal with it and work around it. When I failed at cutting my Bundt cake, I shot the rest of the cake and not the slice. When I totally messed up my glaze on the chocolate cake, yes I freaked out, put on my grumpy face and huffed and puffed but then I wiped off the glaze and poured more on top and photographed only the good angles. When my beautiful orange cake dropped onto the floor, I proudly instagramed it. And the leaning—and breaking—tower of cake….yeah that was a bad one. But I managed to salvage a pretty side and no one had any idea when I posted it.
So what if you fail?
In dating, you’re one guy closer to Mr. Right.
In business, you know what not to do next time.
In life, learn to laugh at yourself and move on. Life is too short to pout.
Your post made me smile this morning. Great thoughts and reminders.
I love the failures. I need to post more of my own, though if you look at all of my posts from the past 5 years they all are nasty. haha
The best part of all is when you realize that the one person in your life you can never make happy because you aren’t perfect matters…but not as much as you think. And then you forgive them for verbally beating you up since you were like, three….for being their personal failure. THEN life if better 🙂
Thank you for sharing!
Perfect. POST.
The word PERFECT was supposed to be capitalized, not POST LOL! I am the queen of mistakes!
A good lesson to learn… we are only human after all and everyone fails at something at some point. We need to not take oursleves so seriously all the time. Thanks for the reminder!
Oh yes- I have made many a dish that never made it to the blog- either because the recipe flopped or the pictures just never came to vision. Sometimes it happens- it’s a bummer- but at least my family is great about enjoying the flops with the successes whether it makes it to posting or not. 🙂
What is that cupcake with the orange paper?
I love this! And, it’s true. Belonging to 2 online cooking groups keeps me honest. When 20 – 30 people are cooking the same thing, it’s hard to fool them! And, I think it’s funny when people say they’re glad I’m not perfect – which is not a delusion I share, by the way. But, they also say it gives more credibility to my work. If you always say everything is perfect, or fabulous, it’s hard to believe. We’ve all tried recipes thinking they’d be great, only to find out they weren’t. There’s nothing wrong with saying that.
You are truly an inspiration and I love your work!
I love how real you are in each post – this one is no exception. You’re right, we can fail, and fail hard core. But if we can use those failures to find the good, it will make them seem less dramatic, and even necessary towards finding ourselves (and keeping us sane in this foodie blog world).
Oh Lizzy, thank you so much for this post. You will never know what a truly great blessing it was to me. I had become so focused on my failures lately that I had pretty much quit trying in almost every area of my life. Then along comes Lizzy whom I admire and respect more than I let you know and you admit to the world that, you too, face times of failure! Your response to your failures was just what I needed to wipe that pout off of my face an get up and try again. Your blog is about so much more than “Your Cup of Cake” and I, for one, am so grateful. You have forced me to change my pouty face to one with a smile and to pull up my big girl pants and try again. Thanks for everything Lizzy. You are my hero!
<3 how real and inspirational you are!!! 🙂
Thank you! I needed this reminder!
This post made me smile this morning =) I do love to laugh at myself and usually share my “oops” moments so others can get a good laugh too. Thanks for sharing your “oops” moments and giving the rest of us a good smile or laugh 😉 and reminding us that we all have those moments that make us shake our heads and then laugh them off!
I can’t thank you enough for posting this!! Why ARE we so hard on ourselves when things go awry? We’re only human, after all. But being the perfectionists that we bakers/photographers are…we can’t even allow ourselves a screw-up occasionally! (And can I just say – BRAVO on your photos/posts even with the accidents!!!)
A good lesson/reminder for us all. We need to remind our kiddos the same so that they can enjoy and laugh and not think they are a failure for a mistake that others make too.
I love failures. I just posted one if my own today. Thanks for showing us that there is always a story behind ever pretty picture.
Love that. “Life is too short to pout.” You should have t-shirts made with that as a reminder. Even your bad shots are gorgeous! I love knowing the behind the scenes happenings for the shots.
loved reading it! am so glad am not the only one who messes up!! love the human side of people
I love your tutorials! I’ve been working with an iPhone for a long time but just got myself a DSLR. I love it! I would love to see a tutorial on some photoshop tips. I have a hard time knowing how to edit my photos.
I have one! Look for it Under “Tips & Tricks”
The pictures from Love to Fail made my day! Reminds me of a similar insident I had where I put candles in a birthday cake that had just come out of the oven because I was in a hurry. Before the birthday grl got to blow out her candles there was wax all over the cake! OPPS! So i cut out the sections with wax and chopped up the whole cake and poured in some milk and added ice cream. Oh well 🙂 LOVE your recipes!
I love your blog! Especially the photography tips!
Nice ! I have one thinks ! Look for it Great Under “Tips & Tricks”
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Love to Fail is a blog about food photography and the lessons we learn from our failures. We hope to inspire others to have fun with food photography and to not be afraid to experiment. Aneurysm Treatment Adelaide
Love to Fail is a food photography lesson series created by food blogger, cookbook author, and photographer, Aimee O’Neill. In each lesson, Aimee shares her love for food, photography, and failure. She teaches you how to capture the beauty of food in a way that celebrates its imperfections. Dentist Chatswood
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