6 Strategies to Help You?Fail

Failure is something most of us instinctively try to avoid. Yet we intuitively make decisions that lead directly to it. We have a love-hate relationship with failure. We detest failure, and yet we champion failing fast and failing forward.?

Okay, maybe the word fast is there for a reason. Fast because why prolong the inevitable and bleed through resources? If there are errors in our thinking or operations, we better find out now. But what if you rush the mistakes? What if the bigger mistake is rushing the failure more than the failure itself? I digress.?

Failure is a concept that fascinates me. Our existence and advancement have happened mainly because of it. In a cause-and-effect world, many of the advancements we’ve made had failure as the causal factor. We were either trying to increase our odds for success, or the act of failure revealed something profound that led to life-improving innovation. Failure has been our ally and our foe. In this think piece, confession, and rant, I’ll focus on the type of failure we should try to avoid.

Unless you’re in Silicon Valley. Failure is most likely not romanticized where you are. Failure is mostly bad and it’s to be avoided. Add to that the societal value we put on respectability and honorability. And sometimes the respected is not the phoenix rising from the ashes, but the soaring eagle without blemish. The phoenix in the ashes is dishonorable and the eagle in the skies is to be admired. The potential loss of honor and favor in the eyes of our communities adds to our unreasonable fear of failure. Hence, we do a lot of things to avoid failure, yet ironically some of those things are a sure path to failure. So, to help you avoid the kind of failure we should aim to avoid, let me highlight some things that have helped me fail many times and will most likely make you fail.

Try to Please Everyone: Making your life the sum total of who likes you is a terrible way to live. Yet our need to belong and stay connected to people overrides our courage to walk our own path. Applause and recognition become more important than what is true, right, good, and meaningful. We act as if the people we’re so committed to pleasing are ultra-intelligent, and omniscient beings. But the obvious truth is that all of us are surrounded by mere mortals, who among other things are afraid, ignorant, and biased. And some of us lack self-awareness, and others tend to project their own deficiencies unto others. And we are the people you want to please against all odds? Good luck!?

View Fear as a Sign to Stop: To fear is to be human. To embrace humanity is to accept that you will periodically, if not consistently fear. And fear might be a good signal, a signal that you care, that you’re invested in a particular outcome, that there is danger lurking in what you’re about to embark on, etc. So in life, the question isn’t about whether or not you should fear. Asking this is asking whether or not you should be human. The important thing is the relationship we have with fear. There are those that treat fear as an ultra-intelligent omniscient being. Every time they are afraid, it is a divine warning sign from on high that they should stop, change course or run for their lives. Yet there is another group that views fear simply as a signal that is connected to all of our flawed humanity. A signal that is built on our knowledge, ignorance, insecurities, trauma, intelligence, prejudices, and so forth. A signal that is as intelligent as you are. The latter respond differently to fear. They investigate it, they interrogate it, they peel the layers, and they approach it with curiosity and objectivity. The former, approach it with reverence.?

Overreliance on Prescriptions and Expert Opinions: Your journey is unique. It is impossible for your story to unfold in the same way someone else’s has. But in a world of infinite probable outcomes, prescriptions from experts help us filter and select our next steps. However, prescriptions are heavily contextual, and half the time, experts know what they’re talking about, and the other half they are probably wrong. Wisdom is knowing which half is right. Still, prescriptions can be useful, especially if you understand the underlying principles at work and find a way to adapt them to your context. In fact, feel free to ignore everything I am saying here, I’m no expert.?

Committed to Avoid Suffering: There’s a saying, anything worth having is hard. If success was a Maasai fabric, suffering is the red and blue thread. It is part and parcel of success. To succeed, one ought to suffer. Be it relational success, material success, health and fitness, and even spiritual success. However, we live in the era of convenience and comfort where the absence of suffering is the utopia most of us are seeking. Some of us believe the purpose of life is experiencing pleasure. The purpose of life is to be happy. The purpose of life is to feel good. Yet anything worthwhile in this world has its own fair share of pain and suffering. The road to a meaningful life is paved with pain and suffering. No wonder it's the road less traveled.

Waiting for Perfect Conditions to Begin: Perfect Conditions are a myth. Life is about marginal improvements. Start with what you have. Begin where you are. Cultivate what is presently possible. And improve/iterate along the way. Waiting for everything to be right is a sure way never to start or to start too late. Failure. But many of us want certainty before we can move. And anything new, meaningful, extraordinary, or innovative will have uncertainties. You won’t have all the answers. You’ll probably have more questions than answers. Start. Iterate along the way.

Ignoring Pitstops: Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Not creating time to stop, reflect and examine, what has happened, how you are doing, why things are the way they are, etc, is a sure way to end up over the cliff edge. A vehicle that ignores a service check will eventually crash or stop. Luckily our stops or explosions aren’t as dramatic. At least not always. It could be a loss of hope. A loss of zeal to live. A deep sense of meaninglessness. A feeling of hopeless wandering. And getting lost in a multiverse of bad habits. A silent explosion. So learn to stop. Humbly and objectively examine your life. Tinker. Repeat. Or you’ll blow up.

Okay, rant over.?

Not all failures should be avoided. In fact, there’s a kind of failure that should be pursued. A kind of failure that expands your ignorance. A kind of failure that makes you more intelligent. But more on this another time. Kwaheri.?

• Martin Seligman - Learned helplessness

• Severe Impostor Syndrome