Fail Your Way Forward

Fail Your Way Forward

I just messed up. Well, it wasn’t a huge mess up, but I cringed when I realized it. It wasn’t devastating or life altering, but enough that I think that what I did wasn’t the best way to handle that situation. I’m not sure I’d call that a failure, but maybe a mis-step. Honestly it’s semantics. 

I think it’s okay to mess up…or fail…whatever way you call it. Arguably it is one of the best ways to learn. You only use salt instead of sugar in your cookies once!  Touching something hot, yup only once! My mom encouraged my brother and I to cook and bake. Often it wasn’t so pretty, like the time I almost burned down the kitchen when I was trying to learn to stir fry for the first time. 

So the ‘ole adage that we fail forward to success, there is something to it! What if we were encouraged to mess up?  That would mean that we were making progress. 

Thomas Edison is often quoted when talking about inventing the light bulb as saying,  "I have not failed 10,000 times—I've successfully found 10,000 ways that won't work". 

It took tenacity to not give up after 100 times of something not working, not to mention over 9,999 times.

Why are we encouraged to  keep trying after making mistakes when we are young and when we are older we feel like we can’t even try for fear of failing?  We learn how to ride a bike by getting up after falling off.  Michael Jordan learned the importance of failing,  “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career, I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." Those failures honed him into one of the greatest basketball players of all time. 

Some try desperately not to fail. I know it’s not ideal to make mistakes. Some mis-steps can be more costly than others. Think about the last time you did something poorly…or badly. Did the world end? Or, did you learn something? 

“Failure is a detour, not a deadend street,” said Zig Ziglar. 

What would happen if we celebrated our failures? I remember being encouraged to set goals based on getting a “no” from someone.  It completely shifted my mindset from avoiding a no or negative response from someone to desensitising me to that outcome. 

Like Charlie Chapman said, “Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.”  I’m not saying you need to make a fool of yourself, but maybe try not to take it personally when you do. 

Statistically speaking not everyone will say no when asked. With whatever you are doing or asking someone will be game to give it a try. So instead of seeing a “No” as a failure, I regard it as progress or learning.

The important thing is to not give up. Keep trying something new to see if your new attempt will be more beneficial. Keep making adjustments until you find your win. I encourage you to fail your way forward.