Most people are reluctant to fail or to admit failure. But to succeed at something you first have to fail, usually multiple times, so you can learn.
Improvement at anything is a result of many small failures. The more you’ve failed, the greater the scope of your success will be. Someone who is better at something than you are probably failed at it more times.
Children fall repeatedly when they are learning to walk, but they don’t give up on walking after failing a few times — they keep trying until they succeed.
We don’t start trying to avoid failure until later in life, when we internalize messages that failure is bad, from the education system and overly critical parents. A focus by the media on extraordinary success, but not on the challenges leading up to it, also distorts our beliefs about success. If you want to be successful at something you have to be willing to fail at it.
Besides offering a chance to learn, failure is an opportunity to rethink our values and standards.
Much of our fear of failure stems from having warped values. For example, if your value is to make everyone like you, you’ll feel insecure and fear failing because others will determine whether you succeed. A more constructive value would be to build good relations with others, which isn’t dependent on the actions of others.
Growth makes us happier than checking off a list of accomplishments, such as graduating from college, getting a promotion, or buying a house. These kinds of short-term achievements generate a limited amount of satisfaction — once you achieve them, they don’t keep making you more and more happy.
However, constructive values — for instance, being honest with others — involve an ongoing process that’s never completed and that continues to provide satisfaction. For example, Pablo Picasso continued to be a prolific artist throughout his life. Had his value been to make a lot of money and be famous, he’d have retired to enjoy the fruits of his success. But his value was continuous learning and improvement — and that kept him going for decades.
We need pain and suffering, including the pain of struggle and failure, in our lives in order to grow.
Pain shows us where we need to make changes, and makes us stronger, more compassionate, less entitled, and more appreciative of the positives in life.
For instance, a group of Polish WW II survivors, who had traumatic experiences including surviving bombings and the Holocaust, ended up believing their experiences had made them better people. Their wartime experiences made them look at life differently. They weren’t bothered by daily frustrations and inconveniences. They were more confident and comfortable about their role in life. Although they still suffered from the effects, they also used their traumatic experiences to improve themselves and their lives.
Similarly, survivors of cancer and military personnel who have experienced war zones often say they feel stronger, more able to cope, and more grounded after facing and surviving adversity. It can take a crisis to make us rethink our lives and make changes.
On the other hand, trying to avoid pain prevents us from reaching our potential. Like physical workouts, it makes us stronger. Just pursuing superficial gratification and highs won’t force you to change. Pain is a beginning.
When people feel sad or anxious, they usually want to get back to “normal” (feeling good) again as soon as possible. But you shouldn’t be so quick to try to jettison pain. You should go with the experience.
When you intentionally change your values, you add an element of pain. You should expect pain when you act on a new value. Accept it as part of change.
People often get stuck on the question of how to change — it seems complicated and they don’t want to fail or be perceived as a failure. For instance, they ask, “How can I just drop out of school,” or “How can I break up with my partner?”
There isn’t really a process. It’s simple: You just need to do it.
The solution to many problems in life is a matter of just taking a step that we already know is necessary. The reason it seems complicated and we hesitate is that pain is involved.
For example, asking your children to move out is simple, but feeling like you’re abandoning them is complicated. You feel like you can’t do it, because you’re mistakenly conflating your emotions with the reality. You need to separate your emotions from what you need to do, then realize you’re capable of doing it, and do it.
Sometimes we wait for inspiration to motivate us to change. Or we wait to be forced into action by a crisis. But this approach gets things backward.
You can start doing something regardless of whether you know how to succeed, because once you get your brain moving, the solution will come. Just do something. If you start by doing something simple, larger tasks will seem easier. Also, doing something helps you overcome procrastination.
Motivation is part of a loop rather than a linear sequence. Instead of moving from inspiration to motivation to action — you should cycle from action to inspiration to motivation (and repeat).
You might be held back because of fear of failure. Because just doing something is such a low bar, failure becomes less of a concern. Anything you do is a step forward, which inspires you to do more (inspiration is a reward rather than a catalyst). You feel freer to fail (the consequences of a small failure are minimal) and therefore you learn.
While doing something as large as changing values seems daunting, it’s no different than changing anything else — start right now by doing something small and building toward a new value step by step.
You can always act — and when even the tiniest action constitutes success, failure can be a catalyst rather than something you fear.