Don’t fear failure: 5 reasons why it’s okay to fail
I love the movie National Treasure, is it kind of corny and predictable, sure, but it’s still a fun movie. And one of the running themes is overcoming failures and not letting it stop you. Ben, Nic Cage’s character, often quotes Thomas Edison saying, “I haven’t failed – I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
But most of us still fear failure, even though we know it’s a learning opportunity and a normal part of life. Sometimes the fear of failure even stops us from trying new things because we don’t want to be bad at them or waste time on something we can’t excel at or win right away.
Failure is a negative experience, but by switching how we look at it, we can turn it into something positive.
Since it’s turning into fall and I always think of going back to school around this time of year, I thought it’d be fun to put the spotlight on failure and share why it’s okay to fail and how we learn from it.
5 reasons you shouldn’t fear failure
1. It’s a great motivator
Sometimes failure motivates us to be better and comes with the “I’ll show them!” feeling, which can be good! Failure can be a driving force toward trying again or giving it more effort this time around.
We need challenges in our lives to grow, change, and improve and often we’ll fail in some of our attempts at new things – or even things we’ve done for years and years. But the point is to not let failure destroy your confidence.
You can do this. Get back up and try again.
2. The risk of failure is worth it
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” is a great quote by Wayne Gretzky and is a great reminder that you’ve already failed if you never even try!
The risk of failure is worth it to find out if you could have succeeded at something.
You have time to perfect whatever it is you’re doing but you can’t let the fear of failure prevent you from even trying in the first place. No one is perfect at something the first time, and perfecting your skills or craft at something is half the fun anyway.
3. Failure makes you humble
No one wants to hear a motivational speech from someone who’s never worked hard for what they wanted in life. Just like we want conflict and struggle in our fiction books, we want to see people overcome failure and setbacks in real life because it makes them more interesting that they still overcame all those problems to come out on top.
It also makes us more humble and understanding to others’ problems when we’ve failed at similar things in the past. Failure can make us more empathetic and relatable, and someone others want to hang out with and learn from.
Being humble about your success can also help you teach others on how to avoid the mistakes you made. Pass on your knowledge and don’t be afraid to admit the failures you encountered on your journey. It just makes your story that much more impressive.
4. Failure gives you new ideas
Back to the Edison example, he tried thousands of different ways to find the right one… but each new method he used sparked new ideas and ways of trying to find the right solution.
Failure can make us incredibly creative and gets our brain working to solve whatever problem we’re up against. Just because one way failed doesn’t mean your next idea or iteration of it will.
We can also use this idea from studying others’ failures, especially in marketing. If a brand failed with a piece of content or campaign, what can you learn from it and how can you do it better?
5. Failure teaches you what not to do again
Don’t make the same mistake twice! They say we learn more from our losses than our wins as we learn what not to do again. You might even start tracking your wins and losses in your work world so you have concrete evidence of your successes and failures so you won’t be setup to repeat a failing idea again in the future.
Do you have another reason we shouldn’t fear failure? Tell me what you think in the comments below!
