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Learning to love failure is liberating.
By Akshad Singi — Written on May 20, 2023
At times, I love failure. I truly do. I have not always loved failure, though. But as I began to understand life and success, I started looking at failure in a whole new light.
Fear of failure is one of the most crippling feelings one could ever have. It causes us to doubt ourselves, lower our self-esteem, and all together — ruin our lives.
It’s what prevents us from going after the life we want to live.
But as I’ve discovered, failure isn’t the enemy we’re conditioned to believe. Instead, I truly look at failure as a friend now. I’ve grown to like failing. The perspective shift is truly liberating.
Think of all you could achieve if you didn’t fear failure. Better yet, think of how unstoppable you’d be if you fell in love with failure. I feel that way. I truly feel unstoppable.
Part of the problem to achieve this is that we’ve been by our society that failure is bad. Let me just clear the air by saying that that's absolute horsecrap. Failure is good. To start believing this, start looking at failure in these three ways and incorporate these ideas into your inner dialogue.
Here are the 3 radical perspectives that made me love to fail at things:
1. The reason why you fear failure the most is exactly why you should love it
Garyvee said it best: "I swear on my kid’s health, I’m obsessed with losing. I love losing. I love losing ’cause I know exactly what you’re thinking about my loss and I can’t wait to stick in your face when I come back."
Most people fear failure because they’re worried about what other people will think of their failure. And the truth is, people will start underestimating you the second you fail. These vultures are always ready to call it out whenever you fail — 'He’s not good enough,' 'She doesn’t have what it takes.'
But that is exactly the reason you should love failure.
People don’t expect much from you now. But you’re not going to give up. You’re going to work harder. You’re going to do what you set your mind to. And you’re going to be big. You’re going to gather immense success.
Low expectations from people plus your immense success. That’s got to shut them up, right?
If you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get there, there is no reason to be afraid of failure. Instead, it’s a great opportunity to prove yourself to people who don’t believe in you, which evidently is 90% of the people around you.
2. Make failure your short-term goal
Have you ever considered the fact that failing is getting you closer to succeeding?
Jay Shetty says in one of his videos for HuffPost, "I actually believe that failure has the ability to lure success. Countless failures are almost doorkeepers to success. And every time you walk through one door, the gate gets bigger and the lock gets tighter and it gets that much more difficult because we’re being tested for our genuineness and our authenticity and our real desire to chase that goal, our real desire to actually embody the values that are needed to almost take responsibility for that success — to take responsibility for the position and the influence it brings with it."
You have to fail a certain number of times in order to succeed. That’s the rule. It’s just how it is. Every time we fail, we’re a step closer to success. Then why do we fear failure? It doesn't make any sense.
I like to believe it’s not failure that we fear but the uncertainty as to how many times we have to fail in order to succeed. If J. K. Rowling knew beforehand that the 13th publisher would accept her manuscript for Harry Potter, she’d smile through the 12 rejections, wouldn’t she?
Not knowing how many failures you need to face before you finally make it is the source of fear. So the way to smile through your failures is pretty simple. Just brainwash yourself into believing that you’ll succeed after a certain number of failures.
Pick your magic number. Any number. Like, when I started writing, I brainwashed myself into thinking that my first 10 articles are definitely going to be rejected. But the 11th article? That would be too good to be rejected.
You do the same — smile through those initial failures. Brainwash yourself into believing that after failing that many times, you’ll succeed.
I actually, physically — I kid you not — smiled when my fourth article got rejected. I just wanted to get through the rejections. The long-term goal was to succeed — sure. But my short-term goal was to get rejected. It was truly liberating. I didn’t ever fear rejection after that.
I didn’t even have to get through 10 rejections before my first article was accepted. But what would have I done if my 11th article — which was supposed to be accepted — got rejected too? I would have felt bad for a day, maybe. But then I would have allowed myself to fail 10 times more.
Failing is good. It simply means you’re getting closer. If you’re able to say these words — "Yes! I failed one more time. I’m one step closer to getting what I want." — you’ll never ever fear failure.
3. If you’re failing, congratulate yourself
Most people go about their lives without ever failing. Because they’re so afraid to step out of their comfort zones, that they don’t even try.
You should not be worried that you’re failing. Instead, you should congratulate yourself — you’re doing something new. You’re growing. In fact, if you haven’t failed at anything in the past few months, you need to take a good, hard look at yourself.
In order to extend your own limits, you have to break down the walls of your current limits. You have to keep hitting the wall with all your strength. A few, weak hits won’t do the job. It’s a strong wall. Multiple, strong hits are needed.
Every time you attempt to break the wall, it’s getting weaker. Your attempts are not going in vain. Every attempt is doing exactly what it needs to do. And one of these attempts will break the wall. Then, you’ll have expanded your own limits.
What you have to understand is that all your failures are necessary. They provide you with the lessons needed to succeed the next time. Failure is nothing but a way to collect the lessons to go on to be successful.
So, if you’re failing at something, Mazel Tov. I mean it. You’re onto something. Don’t live a life without failures. Instead, live a life with many failures. Because many failures equal many successes.
Stop worrying about failure and understand that failure is truly your best friend.
I think you would have to be a sociopath or totally enlightened to have a love affair with failure. But a love-hate relationship? That’s doable. In fact, I think it’s of the utmost importance if you want to develop the courage it takes to build something meaningful.
What are you waiting for then?
Start failing.
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Akshad Singi, M.D. has been published in Better Humans, Mind Cafe, and more.
This article was originally published at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the author.