The Most Dreaded ‘F’ Word: Failure
By Rahul Lakhaney, Technocrat, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Visionary.
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Remember when in school you were given an algebraic equation to solve and you couldn’t find the value of x? You tried every formula that came to mind but that stupid x would just not agree to disclose its value. End result? Frustration. You chose to throw the book away, and at that time you gave yourself an excuse not to try any further by telling yourself that your best is not good enough.
It’s not an easy task to figure out the boundaries when you’ve tried way too hard to achieve something. You fail to fathom whether to give up or to keep trying. It isn’t your fault. Figuring this out IS a difficult task. You will find people left, right and centre, trying to motivate you and asking you to not lose hope. I agree, perseverance takes you places but, that piece of advice given to anybody is a horrible idea. No, I am not negating the fact that any professional who excels in his field must have had a difficult time reaching that platform and during the journey, must have thought of giving up and the reason why he is there today is because he didn’t give up. But just ‘not giving up’ doesn’t fetch you success. You need to revise your formulae, you need to draw new maps, dig new ways and swim your way through, quit at times, leave people, add people, pivot or drop but you need to change your approach of doing things.
Sometimes in life, you need to be strong enough to let go of the strategies that aren’t working and put your hands on something new. Sometimes you have to convince your heart to push just a little more on your efforts. What becomes tricky is figuring out when to let go and when to improvise on it.
Failure always reminds us that there are challenges in our path which we need to overcome. What are those challenges and how do we root them out? I will answer this very question in the blog ahead.
When you don’t strategise your scheme well and your vision is not clear, you are bound to fall. Such mistakes are HOW mistakes. You might have a profound idea but unless you know how to execute it, the idea will remain futile.
- While creating a strategy, follow the process step by step and make a checklist of all the tasks. This makes the follow up easier.
- In order to see which techniques work best for you, follow up. See how much you have achieved after putting in a certain amount of effort. This will lead you to the bugs in your path which can then be improved.
- The next step is to improve what you discovered went wrong in the previous step. This review needs to be constant. The same techniques will not always work for desired results. You will have to twist them according to your vision and this is a recurring job.
Now that you know how to chalk down a strategy and revise it in continuum, you need to understand WHAT goes wrong that these strategies do not work. Of course, the root cause of a problem needs to be unveiled and for that you must do the following things.
- Your strategy is ready. Your vision is clear. But, have you tried it yet? What’s the wait? Launch while you are still in love with the idea. There is no point in waiting for the ‘right time’. This very moment is the right time. Let it flow in the market and see what feedbacks you get and then you know the whole drill of bugs and improvements.
- While you are at the hit and trial method, why not launch the strategy keeping in mind that it might as well not turn out to be as good as expected? Try not to invest too much till you are sure that the plan is a sure shot. Once a lot of time and money goes into the plan, it becomes painful to give up. You get attached to the idea and then it becomes your identity. Whereas; once you know that it hasn’t been toiled upon too much, there is more room for improvements and substitutions.
- No plan can be implemented and then left to survive. Revisions are necessary. Starbucks sold coffee supplies and espresso machines for over a decade before opening their own stores. You need to evolve with time and evolution itself means change. Don’t give up. Take a deep breath and keep the lights on.
When your vision doesn’t go hand in hand with your strategies, the WHY problem arises. This is when you need to buckle up and question each and every step you’ve taken so far and come to terms with the glitches.
- Many a times we get so engrossed in working towards the end goal that we forget why we started. We even forget if it’s the same race we initiated in. Often times we forget what our dreams were and either misinterpret them or mould them according to what criticism the others give us about our idea. We need to stop there and rethink. Go back and analyse what you wanted when you started it and see if you are heading in the correct direction. Make annual reports, discuss them with your team and see if all of you are on the same page.
- Be flexible in your approach. What should remain anchored is the vision but there can be multiple ways of achieving that vision. That’s where you need to flexible. There a million ways of reaching a particular destination. You will not always be blessed enough to get the shortest route possible. So fuel up and let the ride be bumpy; you shouldn’t waver.
There is only one kind of failure which is fatal and that is fear and there is only one thing we say to fear NOT TODAY!
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