Failure Is Your Friend
After reading Laura’s story, I felt compelled to respond and share my own views on fear, specifically fear of failure.
Much the same as Laura, one of the first things I do every morning is wonder how I will fail. But that is pretty much where we depart ways. Instead of flipping through my rolodex and choosing how I will fail that particular day, I usually let the day pick it for me. It’s never the same failure and it usually comes from an area where I least expect it.
As a matter of fact, I've built my career around failure. Failure is my friend. I have the mug to prove it.
I’m a UX Designer. I love to fail. Failure to me is a goal. As counter-productive as that may seem, there are very good reasons for it. Chief among them are: I fail so you won’t have to.
It’s a weird state to be in. If I don’t find all of the fail points in a product(or at least make an honest attempt to) the users of those products will. Let me be clear here. I’m not finding break points. I create design after design that are utter failures. Some I admittedly become attached to and it stings a bit when the inadequacies are pointed out in a very visceral way. However, each of the failures I endure at the design level lessen the risk of a product user having that same experience at the production level.
It wasn't always this easy to embrace falling on my face. I would work tirelessly to make sure I had all of the angles covered. Man, those were the days. Working 16 hours a day, never having any free time, always being consumed with having the perfect product. I'm a perfectionist by nature and initially failure was really hard for me to deal with. My stress levels were always high. I was generally a downer to be around.
My epiphany
The turning point came when I realized there were things I could control and things I couldn't. Things I could control I did. Namely, my attitude. There are 50 bajillion quotes on attitude. Most of them are positive. Waking up in the morning and starting with a positive attitude WILL direct the rest of your day. Whether or not you think you’ve done “enough” becomes irrelevant. You will do enough because you’ll give 100% to whatever comes your way. I can’t stress enough that your attitude is everything when it comes to dealing with setbacks and failures.
And if you fail? So what. Learn from that situation and move on. There aren’t a whole lot of situations that can’t be recovered from.
My empathy
It was hard to read Laura’s article. This statement literally broke my heart
So you give up on the day ahead, you read what other people have written and wonder why you’re not them, even though you’re trying. You try to give yourself a break, but that’s a language you’ve never spoken. You criticize your husband, and that’s not kind, but if he only knew how you criticized yourself he might understand.
I wish I could help if only in some small way. Gains are not made by leaps and bounds but rather by grinding through and pushing your boundaries. I used to be a world class critic. My wife, my kids, myself, God… No one was safe. In hindsight, I really think it stemmed from my inability to trust. I figured out what it really means to trust somebody and started slowly letting go of all of the control I desperately sought to keep. Amazingly, things improved. So I continued. The end product, if there is one, is that I’m no longer afraid to fail.
The fear of failure seemed to stem from being judged on it. If I failed I felt as though it was a personal reflection on me. Now, judgemental people aren’t worth my time and I avoid them like the plague. You’ll never be rich by hanging out with poor people. So, as much as possible, I eliminated people that were tearing me down and making me feel like I failed.
Now I fail on my own terms. Life is better. Maybe that’s the key:
Make sure you fail on your own terms.
