“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas Edison
Fail often to succeed faster. Failing is just finding out what doesn’t work. The faster you fail—eliminate what doesn’t work—the sooner you’ll find what does and achieve your success.
You shouldn’t be concerned about failing. It’s not a bad thing, but simply a natural effect of doing something. After all, we all suck at first when we start. If you’re not afraid of failure, then you keep trying, finding out what doesn’t work and honing in on what does. You get better sooner and succeed faster.
What Matters Is the Result, Not the Process
It’s all about results, not the process. Who cares how you look like when you learn? People only care about your product, not how you looked like developing it. What matters is you reaping the rewards of achieving something, not how you got there.
When you learned to ride a bike, you probably used training wheels, then wobbled when you took them off. At first, you fell. However, the quicker you kept trying and falling the faster you got better. After a while, you got the hang of it. Now you don’t even think about it; what matters to you is that you can ride a bike. Others don’t care as well; they only care that you can ride with them.
You start something. You suck at first. But the more you fail the faster you succeed.
I Failed Often and Succeeded Faster
During my last two years in college, I learned a lot about entrepreneurship: starting a business, delivering value, making a profit, passive income. All I did was read and go to seminars, though. I had a few ideas but was afraid of failing if I tried to execute them.
After I graduated, I started an online business with a friend. I decided to just do it. Our website wasn’t awesome at first, but we kept trying new things. And what happened was the website got a lot better – fast.
And guess what? I learned more about creating a profitable and value-giving business in two months than those last two years in college. I tried a lot, failed often, figured out what doesn’t work, and honed in on what does. I got results a lot faster than I expected – more content, more traffic, more money. After a few more months, we had a finely-tuned website chugging along, and my knowledge of entrepreneurship skyrocketed.
The Opposite of Success Isn’t Failure, It’s Giving Up
What are you trying to achieve? Do you feel it’s taking too long? Are you afraid of failing? Don’t be. Failing isn’t bad, it’s a natural effect of doing something new. We all suck at first.
The only thing that matters is results, not the process. Failure is just finding out what doesn’t work. So get out there and start failing. Try things. Quickly find out what doesn’t work to get to what does. Fail often to succeed faster.
And remember: The opposite of success isn’t failure. Failing is just finding out what doesn’t work. The opposite of success is giving up.
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” -Michael Jordan
