Becoming great at failing
How do you feel when you fail? Like any good human being, you probably feel pretty miserable about it or even allow it to define you.
Or maybe you’re the anomaly whose first response is “Bring it, I want more!”.
I’d love to tell you, I am the anomaly but who am I kidding?! even after years of perspective shift and reframing, the first thought that comes to mind still is “Dammit, why is this not going my way?”
And then, the private coach that I’ve been training for years comes in and says: “What do we do in these situations? We ask — what can I learn from this?” Oh okay, then… erm… Let’s do this! 🤨
I love challenges for they are opportunities to grow and failure is something I’ve learned to embrace, the hard way, but embrace nonetheless.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been pondering on this. It occurred to me that “failure” is yet another topic we, as a society, just don’t talk about as often as we could. Why is that? My guess would be — we’re too embarrassed, we don’t want others to judge us, our egos get in the way and we simply have learned as a society that you don’t air your dirty laundry in public.
And don’t get me wrong, please don’t air your dirty laundry in public!
But when it comes to the so called failure — I actually prefer to call it “lessons learned” (that’s if you learn the damn lesson), sharing with others can be truly powerful …almost cathartic.
Why?
Well, for starters, you don’t feel so alone going through it and chances are the other person will relate to that or have a similar experience. As such, it becomes a collective lesson, a shared experience. What’s more, you’re also keeping it honest, show humility and don’t allow it to define you.
More often than not, we identify with this failure and we become the failure which is really what we have to stir clear of.
Just because we failed at something, it doesn’t mean we are a failure.
Easier said than done, right? You and I both know that in the depths of despair and down the ego rabbit hole, you can’t really see things this way and it can completely ruin your life, if you let it.
If I were to list all the things I’ve failed at so far, I’d need to write pages and pages (you’ll read it in my book haha) — but here are a few: I failed to get into the Uni I really wanted to, which ended up being the best thing ever as I met friends for life at the Uni that was my 3rd choice. I failed to get what I thought at the time to be a really good role — which ended up being the best thing as because of that I secured the spot that completely changed my life’s trajectory where I met really smart and cool become and where again some become life long friend. I failed in business which surprise surprise …blessing in disguise as it got me into a different business with completely new opportunities and challenges. I failed at love and friendship — again, you guessed it, blessing in disguise because those weren’t the right people for me. I fail every day really, every time I try new things.
There’s this annoying thing that happens — when you rollout something new, it never works the way you picture it in your head. You have a carefully, well thought out plan (new product, service, workshop, strategy, you name it) and it all makes sense, till you release it to everyone and then BOOM! all hell breaks loose. Sounds familiar? And then you iterate and iterate and yet again blessing in disguise because whatever you initially had in mind, became an even better version, just because you initially failed.
Can you spot the pattern? I am pretty sure if you were to pause and analyse your “failures”, you will see a common denominator — what appeared to be a failure might have set you for success later on, or you’ve learned really powerful lessons. And sometimes, months or years after the apparent failure, you understand why it happened this way and why it was the best thing that has ever happened to you.
So how can you flip the perspective?
Allow me to present you with some options on the menu.
As a recovering perfectionist, can you guess what my relationship with failure has been? Yup, I was the failure. And take my word for it, that’s not a spot you EVER want to be in. Be a wise soul and learn from other people’s mistakes.
Something that really helped me was this reframe:
If I don’t fail, it means that I am not learning anything new.
And for a life long learner, that can be a pretty scary perspective. As such, I decided to set the intention to “fail more” (this truly was an intention I’ve set at the beginning of 2018) — which for me simply meant try more new things, fuck up quick (or don’t! I got lucky once in a while), learn, share the learnings and move on.
Talk more about it — with anyone who’d listen really. What I’ve noticed in doing that and especially when I have to share elements of my story is that it helps others too, it gives them more confidence that they too can succeed provided they put the hard work in.
There’s this thing we do in start-ups and in live where we just seem like an “overnight success” but if there’s one thing we should have all learned by now is that — THERE ISN’T SUCH THING! It’s simply years and year of failing and then failing some more, and then learning a few things, then having things go your way, then failing again.
We should embrace it! Simply because is part of life, challenges are what gives our lives meaning, they test us, they help us become more of who we want to be, they show us what abilities and skills we have that help us overcome them. Run towards so called failure, you will miss out on important learnings otherwise.
Finally, I want to leave you with this from artificial intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky on pushing yourself:
If you never fail, you’re only trying things that are too easy and playing far below your level… If you can’t remember any time in the last six months when you failed, you aren’t trying to do difficult enough things.
