It's Important to Fail

Failure is neither final nor fatal. Many a times it’s important to fail - to eventually succeed. 

We may have all gone thru failures at every stage of our life cycle - probably the first is as infants taking a few knocks and "learning" how to fall while trying to walk - not a "failure" under any circumstances but think about how brave they are and want to start to run the moment they can walk - so our life lessons start pretty early:) ; not meeting goals in school or college; failing on a project deliverable; failing in a presentation in front of a large audience; failing in a business venture; failing in a sport; failing in a relationship etc.

Ask yourselves - Have you failed enough; what has it done to your state of mind and most importantly what have you learnt.

Failure is not a stigma - be it in personal or professional lives - and you are not a failure just because you have had a setback or two. We cannot let it dent our self confidence or self esteem. Failure should not paralyse us into inaction or limit our appetite for risk taking. Today I am going to talk about why I feel it’s important to fail : 

1. Failure brings with it critical firsthand knowledge. That knowledge can be harnessed in the future to overcome that very failure. When Thomas Edison failed nearly 10,000 times to create a commercially viable electric lightbulb, with each failure, he gained the knowledge of just one more avenue that didn’t work. He said "I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work"
2. Failure is an essential input to radical innovation. Steve Jobs who to my mind is really the poster child of transitioning from failure to success dropped out of college, launched a business, got thrown out of it and later rejoined when it was failing. Rest as we all know is history. His quote “all fear of failure just falls away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important” was truly inspirational. 
3. Failure eventually helps overcome fear. Somehow most of the things that we fear in our lives are interlinked with failure. It is the fear of failing that holds us back from exploring our options and getting us out of our comfort zones. Once you are accustomed to failing you have nothing left to fear anymore and then as you prepare to take risks you realise the world is your oyster.
4. Failure inspires us to lift our game. It ups the ante to do better. Often this inspiration is a wish to avoid another failure. Many don't know that Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. "It was good because it made me know what disappointment felt like," he told the Chicago Tribune. "And I knew that I didn't want to have that feeling ever again." This led to a work ethic that would elevate him to legendary status. 
5. Failure helps build courage and inspires others.  In 1980, 18-year-old Terry Fox attempted to raise $1 million for cancer research by running across the entire length of Canada on a prosthetic leg. He ran over 3 thousand miles before a relapsed cancer ended his quest. He lost his life, but his effort inspired over $340 million in donations to date. His "failure" was hardly in vain.
6. Failure builds resilience. You can’t develop resilience with just success in your life. You have to experience setbacks in order to build resilience. As we experience setbacks or failures in life, we learn substantially more and our resilience only gets stronger each time as we overcome failures or obstacles. We need to internalise that failure is a part of life and what’s most important is how to bounce back - and the good news is that our resilience gets stronger each time we overcome these failures. 

Remember that as and when (and not if) you fail, the below 2 key takeaways could be your response mechanism to failure : 

1. Fail fast - may sound funny. If something’s not working, then kick ego or whatever else aside and cut losses. A personal example for me here was when about 12 years ago I ventured into an entrepreneurial jig putting my life savings into it. Within 6 months I realised it's not working the way I envisaged so I cut losses and exited. Was it a failure ? Absolutely. But had I continued it, I would have got into a debt web I would never have got out of. And this segways well into the last point.
2. Fail Forward - It is the art of reverse engineering the failure into a benefit for the future by studying it; identifying where you went wrong; learn from it and then move on to try again or try something else actually leading to accelerated learning. In my view these are “life lessons”. By reframing the situation in the above case, I relearnt some tenets of how to win in the market place by stress testing the business model; a need to diversify and to have a contingency plan. And on the personal front, I learnt that when you are down and out there are lots of “friends” who may suddenly disappear - on the other hand, you are left with a handful that are out there genuinely concerned and there as a sounding board. Those along with the family that typically stands with you thru times like these are the ones that you need to hold onto thru your life. And yes I also learnt that I was probably better cut out for corporate life where I managed to incorporate the learnings from my failed venture. Henry Ford said, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

True failure as per me is “not to try at all”. You fail only when you give up or give in. So let go of the fear and dare to fail.

ps - views are personal and do not represent those of the company