Failing to succeed
How to fail and still succeed
So what?
Failure is inevitable. If you are alive and breathing, you are bound to fail each and every day because no one is perfect. Do you consider yourself as a person that fails well or poorly? Learning to fail well has the following benefits:
- Gives you learning opportunities to expand your knowledge and skills;
- Makes you more resilient to future failures and setbacks;
- Builds strength so you are stronger physically, emotionally and/or mentally; and
- Grounds and humbles you so you don’t become full of it.
Reach for the stars
When you initially set a goal that you want to achieve, it is important to set one that is realistic yet sufficiently difficult that the process of reaching for your goal is challenging enough to be a learning opportunity for you. Easy goals not only hampers your growth like participation awards, failing such goals will make you feel miserable. Challenging and difficult goals are much more advantageous compared to easy and effortless goals. Aside from the obvious morale boost you get from succeeding at something that is challenging and difficult, you will always be better off than where you started when you fail at such goals. When you aim and try to reach for the stars, you will at least land on the moon even if you fail.
Be responsible
When you fail, be responsible by courageously owning up to the consequences of your failure. Rather than blaming your failure on others or your circumstances, you need to take responsibility of your actions and decisions. Doing this builds resilience so you bounce back faster, encourages you and those around you to help and support one another and creates learning opportunities which expands knowledge and skills.
Reflect
People would rather forget about their failures, shove them in the past or let them hinder future risk taking. Not taking the time to reflect on failures is just as bad as not taking responsibility. You are turning your back on a great opportunity to not let your time and effort go to waste. Reflect on your failures by finding out what worked well and what didn’t, what you would do again and differently, what you got out of it and whether it was worth the risk.
My experience
We bought an investment property more than a decade ago which didn’t come with curtains or blinds. Me being a tight arse, I convinced my Mrs that we can save thousands of dollars by doing them ourselves. The blinds turned out well but the curtains for the living room was another story. Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. The sliding doors were extra tall so the curtains were too short. There were no studs where the rails were to be installed. And a few weeks later, we found out that a professional curtain installer burst a water pipe trying to install curtains in another unit.
I took responsibility for the things that went wrong and reflected on them. I learned to appreciate what tradies go through as well as the effort that goes into learning the knowledge and skills. And I now know how to draw the line between DIY and hiring a professional. That’s not to say that I’ve succeeded in subsequent DIY projects…
What now?
- What was something that you failed at recently?
- What did you do about the failure?
- It’s not too late to be responsible and reflect on your failures.
- Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, has written a book that does a phenomenal job in talking the reader through failing and succeeding. If you’re often failing and feeling like a failure, have a read to turn that around.