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Are you failing fast enough?
First published in the December 2006 issue of "Her Business" magazine
Failure. Along with public speaking and death, failure is right up there with the things we fear the most.
But should we be so frightened of failing?
We’ve all felt it, that sickness in our stomach as we realise it’s just not working. Or that sharp shock as we realise we’ve made a huge mistake! Failure is an extremely unpleasant feeling or state, especially in western culture, but is it all bad news?
In a word, no. Failure is how we learn.
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Failure is an important part of improving. Grow faster than your competitors by learning from your mistakes (and theirs).
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Failure is learning
Young children are excellent examples of how failure is an important part of our learning process. The child learning to walk will stand up, fall down. Stand up, let go, fall down. Stand up, take a wobbly step, and fall down. Despite innumerable falling downs, most of us eventually master walking without falling down too often or being emotionally scarred by the learning experience.
So what’s the point? The point is the child does not view falling down as failure. Falling down simply means that what they tried didn’t work as expected. Failure provides specific information on what is not working, so they try again, sometimes the same way, eventually a different way and before you know it they’re so speedy you can barely keep up!
It’s only as we get older, that we start to feel more emotional about our failures, as they influence our sense of worth. You will rarely see a child cry every time they fall down. Sometimes, if they are hurt or frustrated, but it is insignificant compared to the amount of times they pick themselves up and try again. But what about adults? We seem to lose some of our resilience as we age, sometimes to the point of not trying in the first place, for fear of failing.
Why are we afraid to fail?
In our culture, especially in the workplace, it is important to have all the answers, and quickly! This is reinforced to us on a daily basis, from testing at school, to meetings in the boardroom. It’s also important to be seen doing the right things the right way. Making mistakes is seen as bad, even shameful, as we see when mistakes by celebrities are published worldwide. Yet surprisingly, some of our most successful business people have made enormous mistakes. For example, Olly Newland, and Robert Kiyosaki have both had massive financial disasters before their current financial success.
But is that so surprising? No. Robert Kiyosaki knows he has a lot to learn to achieve the success he desires. He understands that failing is a critical part of learning what doesn’t work. Every failure gets him closer to understanding the successful way. In fact, he believes we need to fail as fast as possible! The faster we fail, the sooner we’ll be successful!
Our culture is one of know-it-alls and experts. To be considered successful we are meant to have all the answers. Yet in this day where knowledge and innovation are key sources of wealth, it’s being able to find out the answers or create your own answer that is most valuable.
Are you failing fast enough?
What do you do to learn? How do you like to learn? You don’t have to learn just from your own mistakes, there’s a wealth of other people’s mistakes out there too to learn from too! There are so many things to try…
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Read about it - text books, biographies, autobiographies, interviews
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Observe others in action – what can you learn from them?
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Be realistic about your capabilities – we can’t be experts in everything, play to your strengths and build a team around you to fill the gaps.
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Have a go – but try it on a smaller scale first, or in a less critical situation to get some experience.
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Learn from successful people – don’t just ask them how they did it. Ask what made it hard? What would they do differently? What should you watch out for? Learn from their mistakes too.
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Learn from Oprah! – When something’s not working, ask yourself what do I need to learn here? Take responsibility and ask yourself what do I need to do differently?
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Utilise professionals – not only do they have the technical knowledge, but they have the experience of seeing it applied in many different situations – that’s the valuable stuff.
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Be honest about your success and failures – be realistic about what you’ve achieved, try and take the emotion out of it, so you can learn and keep moving forward.
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Be true to your own style – we are all different in how we like to learn, there is no one right way, be true to what suits you.
Life is learning. So start failing faster – success is getting closer!
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