Dare to live in Experiment Mode

What is the secret of those who never stop trying?

I like to call Microsoft University Recruiters Dream Makers because they inspire students from all over the world to make their professional dreams a reality. But Dream Makers are also the actual students who try again and again to land that dreamed job or internship.

Dream Maker = Dreaming + Doing (Until You Make It)

We all know that the person who doesn’t stop trying has a greater chance of getting it right, but... From where can we get the energy to keep on trying until we succeed?

In this article I share 3 tips to keep on trying that I learned from my colleagues, role models, and my own experience.

#3 Tip: Get passionate

Instead of searching for something exciting, it's about getting passionate about something. Life is not meaningful. Life is neutral. Life is what it is. Only you can make it meaningful for yourself by getting passionate about something.

In our team we are experimenting using our personal interests as part of the solutions we need in our business. Some like Dave are getting passionate about the question: how do we hire more student athletes? Others like Michael and Alex are passionately looking for ways to make their interest for video and radio production become a tool to amplify the new Microsoft culture to the world. Mauri is passionate about improving management across generations and educating our company about it in a powerful way. Sacha, who is passionate about bringing new opportunities to high school students ended up creating events in which under-served students can count on career mentoring from Microsoft volunteers.

#2 Tip: Give your best every day to become your best version!

Instead of waiting to find what you're good at, it's all about giving the best of yourself to the challenges you are facing now. The time will arrive when it will become evident what comes most easily to you.

While dreaming is key to being able to see beyond what our eyes allow us to see, action is the key to making those things we dream about come true.

Action is the magic tool that transforms us into what we want to be. Here are some examples: a few years of study and you become an architect, you study a few years more and now you are a doctor; and in four more years of study you can call yourself a software engineer, a musician, a poet, a painter ... an artist! We become what we do. Because doing makes us.

Instead of thinking about great feats or massive discoveries, I propose that you simply focus on taking the next step. Do not wait until you have finalized your personal mission statement, or have a clearly defined passion or for the perfect dream to appear and then start to act. It rarely works like this. Act now!

#1 Tip: Practice living in experiment mode

Living in Experiment Mode aims to live life celebrating your attempts as much as your results. Maybe it sounds silly or naive to celebrate an attempt that did not provide the result you were looking for. But, far from being naive, it embodies the professional attitude that lives within those people who try again and again.

The value of having encouraged ourselves to take the action that we thought was correct does not change with the result. Just like we don't become more honorable when we achieve a result by chance. Therefore, if we want to protect and grow our self-esteem, then we must value separately the attempt from the result. On the other hand, those who only allow themselves to celebrate the triumphs and cannot see the success in their attempts have a higher probability of giving up, cowed by their fear of failure.

ARE YOU PROUDER OF HAVING FAILED LESS

or of HAVING DONE WHAT YOU BELIEVED WAS RIGHT?

Someone who doesn't intrinsically values making attempts in the game of life, and instead only values not failing, will try the least possible number of shots to hit a target. They think ten times before shooting. But this mentality leads to procrastination instead of action. Why? Because when we shoot we have a single chance of hitting the mark and many more possibilities of failing. A shot postponed is a shot that, at least theoretically, could have been perfect. This is how, avoiding making mistakes, we can fall into the trap of not acting, while we kid ourselves that we could have succeeded if we’d tried.

So.. Before facing your next challenge I invite you to ask yourself:

WHAT WOULD MAKE ME FEEL PROUD OR AT PEACE WITH MYSELF

EVEN WHEN THE RESULT IS NOT ACHIEVED WITH THIS ATTEMPT?

If making the attempt does not have enough intrinsic value for you, then I suggest not taking any further risks in that terrain, because every time you fail to hit the mark you'll be accomplishing absolutely nothing.

It is better to accept challenges in which the mere fact of acting strengthens our ability and self-esteem, beyond the result. And if you are worried that this kind of thinking might turn you into someone self-complacent and detached from the result, your concern is already telling me that you aren't likely to be the type of person prone to this.

The secret to hitting the target is to give. Listen to the needs of the world and give. Over and over again. Celebrating each shot. Until you hit the mark.

Written by Diego Rejtman and Guillermo Echevarria

If you want to learn more about the concept of celebrating attempts, please read the book "Conscious business" by Fred Kofman.