How To Fail the Right Way

I’ve failed in all areas of my life. Relationships, Career, Health, and finances.

I wish life was like a video game and I could just change the difficulty settings to “EASY mode”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that.

Although there is one similarity that life has with video games.

Experience points (or EXP for short)

The more you get, the stronger and wiser you become.

In many video games, you get a lot of experience points when you complete a mission or win the boss fight.

In life, however, you get a lot of experience not when you win, but when you FAIL and LEARN

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently” — Henry Ford

Redefining Failure

I remember watching an interview by the founder of SPANX (Sara Blakely)

During childhood, her father used to encourage her to fail.

He would ask at the dinner table what her daughter failed that week.

If she did fail at something, he would give her a high five!

It’s rather unusual for a parent to do that.

But the meaning behind that was to encourage his children to not focus on the outcome.

The focus was on not trying.

We need to try and expect that there will be setbacks.

The fear of failure is one of the greatest fears in life.

That fear almost stopped me from writing my first post here on Medium.

I was afraid that my article would suck, no one read it and it would have multiple grammar errors because English wasn’t my first language.

In other words, we need to redefine failure.

Failure is part of the process. It helps us get better at what we are trying to accomplish.

“Failure is success in progress” — Albert Einstein

It’s all About Being Iterative

Pursuing our life goals can be like making software for the first time.

Back in 1985, Microsoft made the first-ever version of windows.

It was a complete failure.

It wasn’t until changes and updates were made to the software that Windows started to become popular with many PC users.

Although Microsoft didn’t get it right the first time, they continued making their product better until it became the Windows we all know today.

As humans, we won’t get it right the first time.

We need to allow ourselves to make these mistakes and learn from them.

This is all part of the process.

I had to be iterative in my career in tech recruitment.

I had to constantly learn new strategies to attract the smartest people in Tech while making so many mistakes in the process.

I’ve been in Recruitment for 12 years and I still feel I have a lot to learn.

And that’s the true beauty of failing. You learn… faster!

The Real Failure is When The Lesson Is Missed

According to John C Maxwell (Author of Sometimes you Win, Sometimes you Learn”) is that many of us don’t know how to handle failure correctly.

This makes sense because although I’ve failed so many times in my life, I’ve never once considered myself a loser.

When I fail, I always tried my best to learn from it as quickly as I can.

There was a time however that I kept making the same mistake over and over again for years.

It was my finance.

I wasn’t able to manage my finances in order. I couldn’t pay off my credit card debt nor could I even start a savings plan.

It was a bad spending habit that I couldn’t get rid of.

It was only until I gave my wife complete control of our family finances that I was able to learn from her how to control our spending and truly understand the value of money.

I learned my most important financial lesson from my wife.

“The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure”

— John C Maxwell

Final Thoughts

It’s important for us to know what to do when we eventually stumble through these setbacks.

Whenever I go through failures in life, I do 3 things.

I meditate, I go for a workout, I listen to motivational podcasts on failure then I talk to my wife or friend about it.

Each person is different, but as long as you learn the lesson and move forward, you’ll be just fine.

Here is a video of John C Maxwell that clearly sums up this post.

If you enjoyed this story, then consider reading my other posts below.

—

Previously Published on medium

***

You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project

Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often

Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything

—

Photo credit: iStock