Failure is part of science
Let's start with a strong assumption - everyone fails. When you fail, you have to remember that you are in great company. Who is with you in this group? Here are some examples:
- Stephen King's novel Carrie was rejected more than thirty times before it was finally published and became his first bestseller.
- Before she became the queen of television, Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first television job.
- Walt Disney founded many companies that completely failed before he managed to create the Disney empire.
- Steven Spielberg was repeatedly rejected by the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, and went on to win three Oscars and numerous other awards for his achievements.
What makes these people so special? Their amazing talent and intelligence? Perhaps, but most experts point differently. Work ethic, perseverance and a strong desire not to give up.
These famous successful people were willing to lose many times in order to win in the end.
Although most people would quit their job after one big failure and stop pursuing their dreams. Instead, they did what all successful people do, they used a "success cycle" that looks like this:
- Attempt
- Defeat
- Lesson
- Success
The first three parts of this cycle (try, fail, learn) sometimes have to be repeated several times to achieve some success. This cycle applies to everyone.
Entrepreneurs, artists, teachers, managers. Successful people in any field follow the same pattern: try, fail, learn, succeed.
They don't feel ashamed because their work was good but not yet great. Instead, they urgently want to learn and climb that learning curve faster.
They really take to heart the old saying: “To make a great omelet, you need to break a few eggs.”
The cooking process can be as enjoyable as the dish itself. You can learn to love trying and learning and achieving the success you want. If you really follow this simple process, the benefits can be enormous. For example, you learn and become more resilient to the negative aspects of failure.
This means you will be less afraid of failure and less ashamed of failure over time. You also become more assertive in the face of the challenges you face. You gain knowledge faster and are ready to take risks.
The goal is not to achieve success, the real goal is to develop the mentality and conditions that will ensure success.
Try the test-failure-learning-success cycle. Get started now. Find a quiet place and think. Ask yourself, when was the last time you tried something new or truly challenging?
If you're having trouble answering this question, now is the perfect time. When was the last time you lost? If it's been a few years, you may be playing it too safe. This way you waste part of your potential.
Remember the test-failure-learning-success cycle. Remember that the next time you lose, you will be in great company. Now it's your turn to take advantage of the cycle of success so that in the end your failures will only hurt you a little, and the successes you achieve with this approach will bring you great satisfaction.
Failure as a tool
People are impressed primarily by humanity, not professionalism. They may respect and admire your abilities, but if they see you as someone who is just as flawed as they are, who has to deal with problems and failures, then they will view you more positively.
Unfortunately, too often people don't feel like they can talk openly about the basic fact that we are all imperfect, so they hide mistakes and avoid talking about failures. Do the opposite. Healthy, productive, happy, and successful people take an active approach to reality, including admitting and learning from mistakes.
The benefits of this attitude are enormous. You will be perceived as more authentic, more trustworthy, and this will make you more open to the world. You will begin to receive more empathy from other people, they will be more open to you. Whether at work or anywhere in life, these things strengthen relationships and provide a better quality of life and increased creativity.
Frankly talking about your failures makes you more humane and sincere, because most people often allow themselves to simply brag because they want to show their strength.
However, the versatility of the human personality is much more attractive. People like to know that you are real. Your experience from a time when you failed, made a bad decision, is extremely valuable and helps others see a more complete picture of you.
Credibility comes from authenticity. To trust someone means to become receptive and vulnerable. Who would you give this privilege to? The best answer is someone we can trust. Someone decent and competent who you can rely on.
As you become more accessible and open about your shortcomings and failures, people also become more honest and open. Whether you are in the role of a friend, parent or boss, the best way to communicate is two-way. You collaborate instead of dictate.
The more you share your full human version of yourself, the more others will want to share theirs with you. People will be more willing to risk opening up to you and sharing their true thoughts. Over time, this comfort and sincerity becomes mutual. They become a natural part of the relationship.
Advice . This can also apply to your personal relationships. When you're ready, remember that more openness creates more trust and then more honesty.
This way you build wonderful and valuable relationships.
Development of an “educational mentality”
When you're dealing with personal failure, one of the smartest things you can do is take a step back and take a broader look at the problem.
You must remember that when you fail, you are not alone. You are part of a large group. In fact, this group includes everyone who has ever lived.
Remember that every successful person fails, then learns, improves and succeeds through consistency in action. This is inevitable and can even be enjoyable if you “learn, study, study.” Remember that this reality applies to everyone.
Before someone became a professional and famous person, he was an unknown person of average skill. He needed to learn and improve. This rule applies to both individuals and organizations.
Take, for example, these famous examples of failure and subsequent persistence that turned out to be successful:
- Apple is now the world leader in several product categories, but before the iPhone came out, there was the Apple Lisa and the Apple Newton. They suffered huge failures in order to learn and grow.
- Or the already mentioned Walt Disney. When he first tried to convince MGM Studios to put Mickey Mouse on the big screen, he was rebuffed on the grounds that a giant mouse on the screen would likely frighten women. Fortunately for generations of children and their parents, Disney survived
- Before JK Rowling rose to fame with Harry Potter, the first book in the series was rejected 12 times and the author was told not to give up her job to write.
So next time you lose, remember which group you belong to. Everyone fails, even the so-called Great Ones of this world. These are the facts. The only question is, will you decide to learn something and persist? After all, this is the basis of your success.
Good Failure VS Bad Failure
It was said earlier that society itself gives such a negative connotation to failure. Failure is too often stigmatized and it shouldn't be. There are actually different types of failure. Some are good and some are bad.
Three main types of failure:
- personal mistakes;
- external factors;
- consequences of aspiration.
Personal mistakes
These are errors that occur due to a lack of skill, lack of focus, or, for example, a mismatch between a person or team and the demands of the job.
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This is really the problem that makes failure seem like a bad thing. Organizations reduce this classic, simple type of failure by adjusting their talent management processes, including hiring, job reviews, and training and development programs, to ensure the right people are doing the right job.
External (contextual) factors
They refer to things that are beyond your control. All projects are subject to uncertainty, all processes are imperfect to one degree or another and can lead to wasted time, excessive costs or quality problems.
You simply can't predict everything. For example, who will quit or get sick? Which provider will surprise you with latency? When will the next economic downturn occur? Of course, these questions are not up to you.
However, there are two things you can do to ease the pain of unexpected difficulties:
- First make a plan for every important job
- Then assess the risks and make contingency plans
Risk analysis and disaster forecasting are an important part of any project.
The second thing you can do is conduct periodic audits (my favorite when analyzing risk) to ensure that you, your team, or your organization are using the best available technology and “best in the field” practices to implement your strategy.
This may include a specific program or certain industry practices such as lean manufacturing. Conduct competitive analysis to ensure you are always using world-class tools and techniques.
The aspiration effect
The third and most interesting type of failure is what we call the aspiration effect.
These are failures that occurred during the course of change, improvement and innovation. We are talking, in particular, about two options:
The first is the desire to be a pioneer in your field. This speaks of trying to do something new that has not been done before. Essentially, to test your hunch or belief, you must deviate from your current course of action, enter unknown territory, and do something new.
This is important for learning, but can be painful at times. Whether you are developing your personal competencies, improving a process, or coming up with a new idea, there is “risk.”
The second type is expanding boundaries. When you or your team is trying to get more work done than ever before. More clients, bigger projects.
It's usually the same job you're used to, but you're branching out to try to improve your abilities and performance. Both types of threats, novelty seeking and boundary pushing, are important for learning and eventual innovation. However, as you well know, they can be difficult to implement. This is because the "system" is often designed to prevent unnecessary risk.
So what do you do in a reality where there is no clear right or wrong answer? You have to ask yourself, do you want to sit "in your shell" most of the time or will you instead take a chance and turn your mistakes into great science?
If you choose the latter option, you will become smarter over time. Fortunately, there are more and more innovative teams, executives, and science-based companies that are taking this approach.
There is no doubt that the test-failure-learn-success process requires courage. Remember that there is strength in the number of attempts. The more you collaborate with those who believe in the process, the more you reduce risk and accelerate learning.
Psychology of failure
Unfortunately, too many people perceive failure in an extremely negative way. The very word “defeat” has become a huge stigma. People don't want to focus on their failures and don't want others to know that they have failed at something.
Unfortunately, this is the wrong approach because failure is actually the key to success . If you think failure is bad, you need to change your thinking. Take advantage of the failures that appear in your life.
Change your mind about failure, learn from your failures and use them to improve, keeping in mind that failure always leads to progress.
Understanding failure is relatively simple. We love and celebrate success, so we don't like the opposite, which is failure. However, this is bad logic. It all depends on the approach and definition. Stop thinking of success and failure as permanent states.
A much more promising position is to see success as an achievement in a specific area. Perhaps you won a race, passed a test with a high score, or got a promotion at work. These are clear examples of success.
Failure, on the other hand, is only part of the learning process that helps increase your chances of success in the future.
From this point of view, failure seems very useful, but many people find it very difficult to come to this conclusion. The reason is their fear of failure.
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In fact, fear of failure is a big reason why people fail to set ambitious personal and professional goals. It is important to remember that this fear is not actually caused by our self-esteem. The problem of experiencing failure affects us all because our fear of failure is created by society. Honestly, it all starts with our education system (find out the differences between the education process in Italy and Russia).
Most teachers teach young people to value good grades and fear bad grades, making the fear of failure a deeply ingrained mental process from our earliest days.
Moreover, we live in a competitive society. In addition to competing in sports, we compete for scholarships, internships, jobs, promotions, etc. In every competition we have a winner and, of course, a loser. Winners should be admired and losers should be avoided. Nobody wants to lose.
Consequently, people avoid new jobs and career advancement and do not try new things. They are very concerned about the actual learning curve that comes with doing something new. They are afraid of the difficulties of learning new things and the possibility of making mistakes.
They are afraid that others will doubt their competence and intelligence. They are afraid of disapproval. These fears may be justified, but they are counterproductive. There are better choices. Our biggest mental mistake is focusing too much on one failure instead of looking at the bigger picture.
To see your average performance and not just one data point, remember that each glitch you experience is just one frame in a very long part of the video. This failure is real and may be painful, but it does not define you.
When you place too much importance on failure and allow it to affect you by labeling yourself, you start a predictable cycle of failure instead of allowing that failure to ignite your learning.
We avoid failure, we don't want to deal with it, so when it happens, the fears and worries build up in our minds, creating a huge cognitive load, and you end up breaking down and doubting yourself.
However, it doesn't have to be this way. Changing your attitude towards failure is entirely up to you. You only need to remember one basic piece of logic: failure is normal and even necessary for success.
Think about this approach to failure. Ponder and study this idea for as long as necessary so that it remains in your mind as a useful thought. Think about this every day. When you accept this idea and incorporate it into your daily thinking, the negative idea of failure begins to fade and you focus on the positive ideas of learning and improvement that arise from failure.
