“They started, and then they succeeded,” went no good story ever.
No one has ever succeeded without failing first. Failure is a sign of effort, passion, and life. It is a crucial step toward success (which you get to define, by the way).
Have you heard of Akio Morita? Probably not, but you’ve definitely heard of the company he founded, Sony. Sony’s first product was a shitty rice cooker that sold less than 100 units.
You know Oscar-winner and daddy of the silver screen, Sidney Poitier? He bombed his first audition so fucking hard that he was told he would have better luck as a dishwasher.
Charles Schultz? Rejected by Disney.
Oprah? Fired from her first on-air job.
Anthony Bourdain? Sold his record collection to buy heroin.
According to the almighty god that is Google, failure is the lack of success or inability to meet set expectations. So illuminating, Google, fucking thanks.
Failure is ripe with lessons, and the first step to receiving those lessons is admitting when you fucking fail. Learning how to fail well is a skill. If you don’t learn how to recognize and examine your own failures, you’ll barrel through life on a never-ending hamster wheel of fucking up.
According to a research study published in 2022 found that people generally refuse to learn from their fuck ups — and when they do, they focus on the wrong shit. Failure threatens our self-worth in the way achievement inflates it. Failure makes us feel bad about ourselves when we are intrinsically motivated to feel good about ourselves. According to the smart motherfuckers behind this study, our confirmation bias kicks in when we fail, and we look for information to confirm that the causes of the failure were out of our control.
Failure is data that can tell us a shit load about what we need to do to get closer to where we want to go.
Learning from failure is fucking hard because it requires us to be objective about ourselves, which most of us ain’t good at. To remove your ego from failure, remove it from success. Success is no more an indication of your worth than failure. While we obviously don’t set out to fail, we can set out to fail well, if we do fail.
What failure is not is an indication that we inherently suck, even though it might feel that way. Failure is data that can tell us a shit load about what we need to do to get closer to where we want to go. In other words, failure tells you how to succeed. That’s fucking awesome.
Failure can you tell you:
Was I negligent? When and why?
Did I have the skills? If not, how can I learn them?
Was I prepared? No, then what can I do next time to make sure I am?
Did I self-sabotage? If so, what’s up with that?
Did I approach the right person? Who is the right person?
Was my goal clear? Not sure, redefine it.
Did I make assumptions? Which ones and why?
Did I communicate clearly? What can I do next time?
Did I ask for help when I needed it? Who can I ask?
Did I use the right tools? What tools do I need next time?
Did I take feedback? Why not?
Squeeze every last drop out of your failures and allow them to inform you as you move forward, you absolute badass, you.
