If something isn’t going to work, when do you want to know? That relationship. That job. That great idea. When do you want to know that the whole thing is just going to be a complete bust? Most of us sit around after the implosion and lament that “if only I’d known sooner...” Our hindsight kicks in and we start thinking of the reasons why failure was obvious, or at least should have been.
Then we wish we hadn’t spent so much time, effort, or money pursuing what turned out to be a dud. If we only had a crystal ball that would show us before we got into it. We would have avoided the whole mess and done something better.
Knowing if and when failure will occur is pretty important. Maybe life-altering.
And yet, we spend a lot of time avoiding failure or maybe ignoring the inevitable. We hate to fail. It feels bad. It’s embarrassing. We feel inadequate and stupid. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Right? So, if we do it wrong...
Edison’s light bulb and Bell’s telephone both came after thousands of failures. Most real innovation comes as a result of multiple failures. Figuring out quickly that something will fail is the essence of getting to the next step - the step that may be the success.
Failure is only embarrassing because we let it be. Failure is an important key to success. Recognize the milestone for what it is. Get to it as quickly as possible. Get over it as quickly as possible. Learn as much from it as possible.
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