How Successful People Think About Failure (And How it Helps Them Succeed)
I was talking to a friend about a mistake I made recently. I’d shared a document with my boss with an embarrassingly off base assumption.
He wasn’t mad. He simply commented “This top part is wrong, and consequently, so is everything else. Let me know when it’s fixed.”
Ouch.
I should’ve known better, I thought to myself. I shouldn’t have made that dumb mistake in the first place.
My friend thought it was fine because at least my boss caught it. No harm no foul. “Sure, but he shouldn’t have had to do that. I should’ve known.”
“I should have known” — I say that to myself a lot when I make mistakes.
It runs in stark contrast to Gary Vaynerchuk’s (who I love) modus operandi which is: “Mistakes are fantastic. Actively chase them — they’re how you learn.”
I get this in theory.
You post an article and people view it or they don’t. You create a product and people either buy it or ignore it. You tell a joke and people either laugh or stare at you blankly. Either way, the outcome teaches you something. If you keep trying different approaches, feedback teaches you how to improve.
But it still stings when you’re wrong, and the fear of embarrassment can make you not want to try. So how do you get over it, especially the fear of failing in front of other people?
“I’m still learning, just like everybody else”
Then I had a startling mental shift.
My friend asked me a series of questions.
“Why do you think you’re supposed to know everything already? You’re not an expert.”
“Yes, but I’m supposed to know how to create this document.”
“It was one mistake. Why aren’t you allowed to be learning? You’re a high performer already — Why does everything you do need to be perfect?”
Something about these questions really hit me. Why aren’t I allowed to be learning?
In fact, if Gary Vaynerchuk doesn’t expect perfection of himself (and he’s boatloads more experienced and talented than me)… then how in the world can I expect that of myself?
To be honest, I didn’t realize that I was expecting myself to be perfect. I didn’t consciously realize until we had that conversation that I was holding myself to such a high standard.
It made me realize that my expectation that I be “perfect” (or, if not perfect, then excellent 99.99% of the time) was holding me back from accepting feedback. And consequently, pushing away feedback opportunities was actually making me worse.
In essence, wanting to be perfect was lowering my performance.
This was the epiphany.
The reason successful people tolerate (heck, even celebrate) failure is because they never expected their output to be perfect in the first place.
They produce, learn, adjust. Produce, learn, adjust.
That’s the cycle.
The long view on life
Successful people take the long view. They realize that any single outcome isn’t important. What’s important is the series of outcomes that accumulate and slowly move in the right direction based on adjusting from feedback.
Removing the weight I put on any given task (like a single document) was an enormous mental shift for me.
Life isn’t about today. It’s about the weeks, the months, the years that add to something bigger. If I keep wanting every day to be perfect, I’ll hide in shame from each and every mistake. And end up losing years.
I needed to realize this. It put so much in perspective.
I hope it helped you too.
