Fail Forward

The biggest reason that many of us fail to make large steps in life and have the impact of which we are capable is fear. Fear stops us dead in our tracks. We are terrified of making mistakes. We are afraid of the pain and the shame that comes with a misstep. As a society, we focus so much on success stories, that we overlook how many failures every success must endure to become a reality. By focusing only on the successes, we judge ourselves as unworthy and incapable when we fail along the way, even though these failures are important stepping stones along the path. If you ever want to achieve the success that you are admiring, you have to be willing to fail forward. And, in order to do this, you’ll have to move your ego out of the way, face your fear and do the work.

In order to free yourself from the crippling obstacle that your ego poses (it is, after all, your ego that cannot take the shame of feeling judged), you must learn to separate your intrinsic human value from the success of your endeavours.

This is a bit of a tricky task, as most of us have our success in the eyes of others and our human worth intolerably intertwined that we believe that if our idea fails, it means we are a failure.

But, you only fail when you stop trying.

Legend has it that it took Edison 10,000 attempts to create the lightbulb. When asked how he continued after 9,999 failures, he responded “I did not fail 9,999 times to invent a lightbulb, I merely found 9,999 ways that a lightbulb does not work”. Now that is grit.

Fail! And Fail Frequently!

What is evolution if not just a long series of failures in order to find novel solutions to ancient problems.

What is innovation if not a series of failures that opens new paths.

You have to be willing to take chances if you ever want to make a difference.

Do not let your ego get so attached to an idea that you cannot release it when it fails. Try hard, grit your teeth, sweat and bleed a little, even offer up some tears; then lean how to walk away. If your mental health is suffering, if your family is at the end of their rope, if your spirit can’t take anymore, then pick up your pride and have the humility to walk away gracefully.

Sometimes the timing isn’t right, the conditions changed or the economy took a downturn. Your first attempt to change the world is unlikely to succeed. Good. You need the humility. It’s only in the failure that you can truly learn gratitude and humility essential to be a good leader when you succeed later.

Sometimes luck just isn’t on your side. That’s fine… learn your lessons and move on.

You should be failing at something every day. This is how you inoculate yourself against the fear. You fail everyday. Seek small failures, and brand them as such. Let the word lose all of its negative power that it holds over you. Most of us will grimace a little when we hear the word failure, we might not even want to use it. That’s a mistake. The more power you give the word, the more power it wields over you. Take the power away. Empower yourself to fail forward.

Try new things everyday so you can learn how to fail on a small scale. Get those reps in, you only learn this through experience. And, only by learning how to fail on a small scale will you have the courage to take bigger and bolder actions. And trust me, the world needs your big and bold actions. We need you to get over that fear, so inoculate yourself against the haters, and create some ripples.