How To Fail Successfully — Step 3
Prepare Yourself
Failure is inevitable at some point in each of our lives. As hard as we try, and as much as we do right, none of us is perfect and at some point things will just not work at the way we had hoped they would. Whether it’s the result of our mistake, someone else’s error, or just something going wrong.
Failure happens.
Just accepting that as a part of life puts you on the path to Failing Successfully.
Step 1
Decide to do something.
Decide to do something, because if you don’t decide to do something you will never fail, but you will also never succeed. So decide to do something, even if its one small step toward where you want to actually end up, decide to do it.
Step 2
Just keep going… and going…and going…
Step number two is to decide to just keep going. Failure is hard, let’s just not kid ourselves. Sometimes you fall flat on your face, you lose money, you end the relationship, you whatever. It’s hard.
And sometimes you just gotta kinda step back and give yourself a minute or two. But don’t let that derail you. Don’t let that be a reason to just stop and never move on.
Keep going. Keep going and figure out a way to make it work. Because if you stay in your failure then that’s all you’ll ever know.
Today we are on Part 3 of the 12 steps in the How To Fail Successfully Formula.
Step 3: Prepare yourself.
Now, we assume that before somebody starts a project that they have figured out how they’re going to do the thing. What they’re going to do. Where they’re going to go. What their end game is.
That’s not always the case. Sometimes we just kinda step off that cliff and hope there’s a bridge there like Indiana Jones did. That’s a step of faith. Faith is a good thing, but if you don’t have the knowledge and skills to do what it is you want to do you’re probably going to fail.
Education is a good thing. I’m not a huge fan of the whole “go to college” mentality. My daughter just graduated with her bachelor’s degree and some of the classes she took? Well, she at least learned how to pass the tests… (That’s the subject for a whole different series.)
But anyway, educate yourself. Read books, talk to people, watch YouTube videos…
Figure out what it is you SHOULD do in order to succeed, and then follow those steps as closely as you possibly can. That will increase your chances of success.
There is a second part of preparing though — preparing yourself for the POSSIBILITY that it might not work out.
Don’t walk into a project thinking, Sigh…I’ve tried this before. I’m not gonna do it this time. I don’t know why I’m bothering. Everyone said that I was gonna fail. This is useless.” Those thoughts can play over and over (and over and over!) in your mind and they will just pull you down.
And if you tell yourself those things, you tend to get what you believe. It takes a lot of strength to pull yourself out of that kind of thinking, but it can be done. And it is so worth it! I’ve done it, and I know it’s so worth it!
If you can figure out how to get past that personal internal recording. Those lies that you are never going to amount to anything. If you can figure out how to just do something — that thing you decided to do back in Step 1. Figure out how to just do it. And then walk in it, keep going, and don’t give up, then you will succeed.
The main idea of preparing yourself for the POSSIBILITY of failure is to decide ahead of time to not let failure be your end.
Keep going, don’t give up; make another plan if you need to. An entirely different plan if you have to. But just keep going, knowing that you have the skills you need to do what you need to do, and can learn new skills along the way if you have to.
Follow these steps and then, even if you do fail, you can Fail Successfully and keep moving on toward your goal.
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