Failure = good

Mistake-a to make-a

Failure is a huge part of life, and that’s a good thing. Stay with me. Without failure, we wouldn’t have success.

It’s not that we couldn’t have success. Sure, sometimes we get things right off the bat and those moments are extra satisfying. But! They can’t happen all the time and if they did, the novelty of them (EG the thing creating satisfaction) wouldn’t exist. They would be second nature, nothing special, normal jah feel? So, let’s keep them rare.

We’re not here to talk about when we lucked out. No, we’re here to talk about all those times we didn’t get it right. First off, we need to check in with how we’re seeing these moments. Both in the moment, and how we’re looking at them after they’ve happened. What are we saying to ourselves when we feel we didn’t succeed? General consensus, we’ll call ourself a failure.

Hold your horses for a moment there. What if we were to flip the whole concept of ‘failure’ on its head? What comes out then? Well, then we’d be playing a very different game. Where we’re actually going wrong isn’t what we think is the ‘going wrong’ bit. It’s the bit after that. It’s not the thing we did, it’s the way we thought about it. Our downfall comes the moment we tell ourselves that what we’ve done, failed. Rather than a glass half full mentality, we bee-line for a glass half empty. We’re thinking “I failed, and that’s that”. But is it though?

I’m here to tell you, it’s not. That’s not the end. Not even close. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. With every failure, you’re moving further away from not-knowing and taking a step closer (every, single, time) to cracking the code. Thinking “and that’s that” makes sure we’re not giving ourself the option of a well deserved rematch. Instead of giving ourselves another chance (and it another go), we choose to wash our hands of responsibility. Is this really how we want to play?

Failure backflip

“If at first you don’t succeed, try try try again” routes way back to 1840, but it’s as true today as ever. By deciding “that’s it then” therein right there is the fail. Everything you did up until that point to get there, the trying bit? That was a huge success. It’s just that internal dialogue at the end that needs work. With that in mind, what does a failure parkour 180 look like?

First off, change terminology. No longer ‘failures’ let’s call them ‘attempts at success’. These, are worthy of a retry (then another, and another). If you’re using the old word, it’s a laborious failure flop. But now failure is off the menu in favour of limber, loose, flexible success. Now, each retry is a success in its own damn right. Not one of them are failures because with each, you’re getting closer to your desired end result. 

Prepare to fail

What we need to recognise is that life is an iterative process. This means, like anything worth doing, we have to go through a series of attempts to get it right. (I’m talking about repetition of the process of life, not life itself, we only get one of those obv). It’s through our repeated attempts at success, that we learn. Think of a baby learning how to walk. No doubt there’s going to be lots of failed attempts. But that doesn’t stop them from trying again. And again, and again, until they do it. With each attempt, they’re able to learn more about how to do it. They don’t see it as a failure at all, they see it as a challenge. Imagine if you had just tried once and then given up after your first attempt all that time ago? Now that would have been a fail. Instead, what you chose to do, was to attempt success, before, eventually, succeeding. Hooray.

Risk it for a biscuit

I’d like to introduce a little coaching moment called the “confidence competence loop”. The loop suggests that with confidence, comes competence (the ability to do something), and in turn with competence, confidence in your ability to do it grows. It seems we’ve got ourselves a spot of Chicken Or The Egg action. What comes first?! If competence induces confidence, and confidence causes competence, then how the fuck do you get one, to get the other, to get the other and so on?

Well. Here’s when shit gets interesting. Taking our ‘attempts at success’ concept a little bit further, to get yourself into the loop, you have to completely eradicate failure from your headspace all together and welcome instead imperfect action. This is all about doing something that you know, ain’t gonna be perfect. From your previous attempt at success, you’ve probably learned a thing or two about what not to do. Now what to do, what to do? There’s so many options. Totally, there’s fucking loads. So, your imperfect action is not the ideal thing, it’s calculated guess work. Being actively imperfect takes the edge off feeling we have to get it right off the bat, and no matter how small, it will for sure help get you closer to where you want to be.

You’re going to have to start taking some risks. Risks sure can be scary, unfamiliar, uncomfortable and the rest. But nobody got anywhere without taking them. Risks in the form of imperfect action don’t actually have to be all that scary because, you think about them first. Just ask yourself this very simple question: “What can I do that I know is imperfect action?” (Today, right now, that will get me moving in the direction I want to be going)?

When you start applying imperfect action towards things, that in itself, will slowly but surely make you more competent in dealing with the task at hand. Once your competence starts to grow, confidence begins to flow. Keep on keeping on, et voilá. The aim of the game is to be confident in your imperfect action, or content in your mistake making. Don’t be afraid of them, embrace them! (FYI it’s not just me saying mistakes are worth it. There’s loads of successful people out there who agree that making mistakes is the way to go). Failure’s such a downer so choose to take imperfect action and attempts at success to get the outcome you want. The more you jump in, the more you win.

Morals of your success story

• Making mistakes is the way to go

• Life is an iterative process

• Try try again

• Take risks via imperfect action

• Success is the offspring of good old fashioned ‘failure’