Most people probably don’t associate Michael Jordan with failure too often, but here’s a few facts about the basketball god himself:
He missed more than 9000 shots in his career. He lost almost 300 games. 26 times, he was trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. He failed over and over and over again in his life. And, according to him, that is why he succeeded.
Here are a few ideas about failure, and its necessity in success:
Fail Forward, Fail Fast, Fail Better
The cost of inaction is far greater than failure. An idea without action is not worth the space it occupies in your brain.
Fail Fast
Break items into small chunks which allows for more experimentation, leading for more chances for success.
Fail Forward
Learn from what didn’t work, but continue toward what will work.
Fail Better
The best way to increase our amount of learning is to increase our amount of failure.
For me, personally, I’ve lived most my life afraid of failure. Only recently have I realized that I can actually speed my personal and professional progress by taking more risks, experimenting more, and as this article suggests, failing more.
TAKE ACTION: The first thing to understand is that, in most cases, failure is not the end of the world. Especially in the context of business, small failures, and even larger ones sometimes, are necessary milestones in learning and improving. Of course, this does not suggest you make haphazard decisions, but instead take more calculated risks- Move faster. The next project or task you work on that is supposed to take you 1, 3, or 6 months- See if you can cut that time in half. Set a shorter, more challenging time constraint and see what you can do.
Source: Digital Leader, @equalman
