The Benefits of Failure: How Failing Leads to Success

Maybe the reason you’re yet to be successful isn’t that you’re not good enough, or that the goal is impossible, it might just be that you’re not failing enough.

I know what you’re thinking: that failing doesn’t feel good, failing is painful, failing means you didn’t win, you missed out, and failing is something to avoid at all costs, right?

Wrong, although you should never try to fail, that means not trying your hardest, and we don’t want that. What we do want, though, is for you to fail more.

See, if you tried but didn’t succeed, it isn’t a sign to pack your things and go home; it’s feedback, and how you use that feedback determines whether or not you'll be successful.

You Need To Fail

What does it even mean to fail? Did you not manage to finish the marathon? Did you not get the job? Did you not hit a personal record? 

Because all of these examples, and almost anything else you can think of (within reason), can all be solved when you put the word ‘yet’ at the end. 

You didn’t finish the marathon…. yet. You didn’t get a PR…. yet. 

There's a reason you didn't win, so figure out what went wrong, improve, then go again. What’s stopping you? Pride? Embarrassment? Self-esteem? 

Failing is learning, all you have to do is put the unhelpful emotions to one side and go again.

JK Rowling got rejected by 12 publishers before Harry Potter was accepted, 12 times! That’s 12 opportunities and reasons to think that maybe what she had wasn’t good enough. But she kept going, she tried again, and again, and eventually won. 

But, she not only won, Harry Potter went on to be the best-selling book series of all time.

Steve Jobs got fired from his own company, Apple. Years later, he went back and turned it into the successful company you see today. Getting fired from a company you founded seems like a good enough reason to give up to me, but where does that get you?

What JK Rowling and Steve Jobs have in common in these two examples is that they learned. Instead of getting themselves down, calling themselves failures and giving up, they learned from it, improved, and tried again.

You might think this doesn’t apply to JK Rowling as it’s not like she re-wrote the book each time, but what she did do was adjust who she targeted as publishers, adjusted her approach, changed her pitch, etc.

There’s always something you can take from a setback, and it’s how you react that truly determines whether you succeed or not.

The Only True Failure 

Let’s take a step back and actually think about failing. What is a “fail”?

According to the dictionary, failing is “be unsuccessful in achieving one's goal.” 

So, you’re not actually “Failing” if you have the chance to have another go. Of course, if you truly only get one attempt, then fine, maybe you failed. But when does this even happen?

So even according to the definition, you’re not actually failing, you’re learning.

The only way for your setback to actually become a failure is if you give up, because by giving up, you guarantee that you will "be unsuccessful”. 

Deciding to no longer chase your goal isn’t always a fail, though, but this is where it gets a little tricky. If you stop chasing a goal, even though no new information has come to light, and you’re only stopping because things got hard, you failed.

But if you stop chasing a goal after finding new information, or if you decide to pivot and instead chase something else, this, too, is not a failure. 

The Takeaway

If failing isn’t really failing, and if it instead means you’re learning, then shouldn’t you be “failing” as much as you possibly can?

Again, don’t try to fail, but maybe putting yourself in situations where you’re more likely to fail is the fastest way to learn, thus being the fastest way to success.

Stop letting the emotions that come along with setbacks turn them into failures. Try, learn, try again.

The only thing that’s stopping you is you.