What Would You Do If You Knew You Couldn’t Fail?

 

People hate to fail. We drive ourselves crazy trying to avoid it. The irony however, is that we are natural experimenters.

Our ancestors started roaming the planet about 6 million years ago, modern form humans back 300,000 or so, with civilization starting about 6,000 years ago. The constant through all of that has been trying out new ideas, methods or activities.

Do you know what happens when we experiment? We get things wrong.

If We’re Built for Experimentation, Why Do We Hate It?

While failure comes with experimentation, it has an unfortunate connection to our fundamental needs.

Originally developed in the 1940s, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs helps us identify and rank core human requirements.

Level one being were most of our trouble resides when thinking of failure.

Biological and physiological needs — air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

Our earliest memories set the stage for our future.

We go to pre-school to succeed in kindergarten. From there we move through the elementary grades, our training program for high school. Four more years in the trenches and now we’re for college or university. The pinnacle of our education system being a precursor to finally entering the workforce and getting a job — that will provide for our food, drink, the roof over our head, support a family and sleep in safety.

There’s no room for failure.

Reframing Failure

Failure is an inevitable part of life.

The failure itself is not the pivotal part, it’s what we learn. Looking back at our failures, we are able to identify what went wrong and why. This type of review deepens our understanding and facilitates new ways of thinking and reacting in the future. Failure makes us more adaptable and develops our creativity.

If we never learn new ways of thinking, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes the next time we find ourselves in a similar situation.

Everything negative — pressure, challenges — is all an opportunity for me to rise

Kobe Bryant

What most people don’t realize, is that we are built on failure. They are the stories we rarely share. They are often our most important.

Successes are visible, our failures invisible.

What happens if you change that?

Failure Resume

First introduced by Melanie Stefan of the University of Edinburgh in 2010, then made viral by Johannes Haushofer from Princeton in 2016, a failure resume is a celebration of all of things that you didn’t accomplish.

The underlying idea is that our successes are only a part of our story, and by putting as much care to document our failures, we create a better understanding of what go us to where we are.

How’s it done?

Exactly the same way that you would structure a resume when applying for a job — except everything put into it, is a failure.

The schools you applied to and didn’t get in. The awards that you almost won. The jobs you dreamed of and flamed out in the interview. The projects that tanked. Missed promotions.

They key however is to include what you learned from each failed step. How did the experience influence you? What change did you make going forward?What door opened because that one close?

There is always an upside to failure. Sometimes we discover exactly what we are supposed to be simply be eliminating other options.

Making positive links to our defeats will accelerate your progress. Rather than being bogged down by what could have been, you move forward appreciating all of the tools you carry from those experiences.

Final Thoughts

We love to fantasize about glory and success, but we always cut out the pain. To have success you have to take risks, and taking a risk means that sometimes you lose.

This. Is. Normal.

Don’t get bogged down with old ideas of failure. Attitudes are changing.

Fail fast, learn and adapt.