Often Cloudy

Sometimes in life we just fail. It happens to everyone from the rich to the poor, although probably less often to the rich. It can come from unforeseen events, bad luck, or even personal laziness. Not all failure is bad, however. Sometimes the product of failure can be better than the expected original result. Often the act of simply trying and failing is more gratifying in the longrun, than if you had never tried before.

This blog is actually a product of failure. I had originally tried to become a webcomic with this domain. In my trials, I quickly came to understand my drawing skills aren’t what I expected (and certainly not what the public demanded). But I can say I tried to be a webcomic once, even if for a short time.

Paul Graham recently wrote about some of the reasons people give for not starting their own business. Its not surprising that one of the reasons is fear of uncertainty, or basically the fear of failing:

“No one will blame you if the startup tanks, so long as you made a serious effort. There may once have been a time when employers would regard that as a mark against you, but they wouldn’t now. I asked managers at big companies, and they all said they’d prefer to hire someone who’d tried to start a startup and failed over someone who’d spent the same time working at a big company.”

If you look back from today, can you find moments in your life where you wish you had just gone for it, regardless of the outcome? I think most people can find at least a few of these moments, and the timid will find many. To me, failure is a better outcome than regret.

What to do with failure

So you’ve tried something that just didn’t work and you’ve failed. Now what, right?

1. Reward yourself
   This probably sounds like the opposite of how people usually react. Along with failure often come feelings of anger and disappointment. After investing whatever it was into a project or trial, when we fail we only see the sad, twisted results. Its very rare that we take a step back and look at how much work and effort we put into something. The reward isn’t for failing, its for trying to do the best we could.
2. Record the lesson
   Everyone should be familiar with this part. After a mistake or failure it is important to learn from that experience, so we won’t have to make the same mistake twice. The concept is as simple as burning yourself with a match, next time you wont it for so long. Whatever the circumstance, it will be easier to recall the lessons if they are written down, possibly a business report or even a personal journal. Depending on the type of failure, maybe you should consider sharing the lesson, to help others avoid the same issues. For example, I don’t recommend trying to draw a daily webcomic if the last illustration class you took was in high school.
3. Move forward
   While it is important to take something away from a bad experience, it is crucial that once you have the lesson you move on. It is so easy to get depressed when things don’t go right. The problem here is that your attitude will often start affecting other areas of your life, previously unrelated to the experience. After that things can quickly start looking very bad. The best thing you can do is get your head straight, take a fresh angle on a new day, and start looking for your next opportunity. There is no reason for you to continue mulling over a failure after you’ve already learned the lesson.

Even if you do fail, don’t feel so bad. After all, its not like you are the number one result for ‘failure’ on the world’s largest search engine.

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