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I Fail More Than I Succeed

Updated on February 15, 2019

To Get Good at Something, You Have to Fail a Lot

For some reason we get discouraged when we try something new and fail at it. We don't realize learning something new requires a lot of failure. You can study as much as you want but more often than not you will fail no matter how hard you try.

The idea is to learn from your failures. You have to learn what does not work before you can perfect what will work. I know some people feel failing is a negative thing but if you look at business or your artwork or anything else you have to practice to perfect and become good at, you will find you must fail over and over again until it is just right.

Treat your failure as a badge of honor. Know because you failed you have a reason to begin again. You have a reason to do more research and find a better way to do whatever it is you failed it.

Don't Let Failing Stop You From Trying Again

I see people treat failure as a negative thing. They allow it to control their emotions. They become depressed or discouraged whenever they fail. This should not be.

Whatever it is you're trying to do, you should try to treat it like playing a sport or a video game. You get excited while you're playing the game but when you lose you should be a good sport, You should congratulate the other team, the other players and let them know that what they accomplished was amazing.

If you're trying to start a business, if it fails, be lighthearted about it. Realize that the game you are playing is just part of the process. You have to understand how to do business in whatever market you are trying to grow in. If you can't grow in that market then you need to figure out how to except that, how to move on or make changes so you can build within that market.

Share Your Failure

If you are trying to stop drinking, you discover it's a battle. Alcoholism affects the whole nation whether you drink or not. Many people try to control their addiction by attending Alcoholics Anonymous. The reason they try these groups is because they put themselves among other people who understand what they're going through. They're able to support each other and give each other tips to battle a disease that is unforgiving.

Starting a business is kind of like the same thing. If you are trying to start a business you want to put yourself around people who are also starting a business or have owned a business for a while. You want to be able to learn from them to understand what problems they had when they began.

Groups are a great place to share tips. Groups are a great place to hear stories, stories that might inspire you to do something else or inspire you to keep moving forward with whatever it is you're passionate about. If you're an artist you want to join a makers group or a drawing class where you can be around other people who are creating art. You can watch as their hands move across the paper and see what they are doing that is better than how you do it. Then you can apply those skills to your own work making yours even better.

Try a Different Angle, Think Outside the Box

Failure will drive you to look in places you never thought you would for answers that possibly would never come otherwise. It's a good idea to try things that other people are not trying. Find other ways to accomplish your tasks in a more productive way.

If your goal is to be the best surfer in your state, then you will want to find a way to ride waves with more maneuverability and speed. To find these kinds of abilities you may have to build your own board. You may have to find a new way to stand on your board, new ways to maneuver to create interesting and never before seen patterns to riding a wave.

If you are a magician and you are trying to create a new unique trick or illusion, you are going to fail several times to fool the audience. Many observers will figure out your trick easily and you will have to go back to the drawing board several times to rework it, to figure out what it is that needs to be hidden better so your audience cannot see the secret of your illusion.

Celebrate a Partial Success. Then Adjust the Part That Did Not Work

Sometimes a partial success is better than no success at all. Sometimes you might take a small step forward, you might run a half marathon instead of the full marathon. Even though hundreds of other people continue to run after you ran out of steam, you can still say that you ran half a marathon. That is still an accomplishment

It's important to look at your partial success and celebrate it. Take time to tell other people about what you have done. Take time to realize that you have accomplished something. Don't let it go to your head because your next step is to figure out what didn't work, why you fell short of the complete goal.

The nice thing about having a partial success is you know something was working. If you know what part of your effort was working then you can repeat that again and again and again. You will have to adjust what you're doing slightly to figure out how to go the rest of the way. If you're running a marathon, then you will have to train for another few months and try again. Training is important because it conditions your body, preparing you for a longer run. If you prepare doing more of the same thing you might be surprise what you accomplish.

When You Succeed, Do More of That

Eventually after trying over and over and over again you will find something that will work. If you are writing a book and it does not sell, write the next book. If that one doesn't sell, write the next book and keep writing until you find a niche that people want to read. Eventually you will find something that interests the majority of the population, Or at least enough people to make it worthwhile to write.

Once you know what people want to read then you can go back and write more of the same thing. Find something that people want and give them more of that.

Be careful not to regurgitate and repeat yourself over and over and over again. Find more information about the same subject. Find more ideas and branches from that main subject that you can elaborate on. The more you can elaborate the better.

Successes will Not be Successes Forever

Once you find something that works and you are able to repeat it over and over again you will find success. What you must be careful of is when that success either stops in its tracks or slows down to a point where it's not worth it anymore.

Some people try to do the same thing over again even though it no longer works. A good example of this is writing for a newspaper. I believe there are still a lot of people who read the newspaper but a print copy of the news has become obsolete. Most people get their news either on their cell phone or iPad or the TV. They get their news from Podcasts and emails and webpages. They don't need to have a printed stack of paper sent to their home anymore.

When writers for newspapers discovered their jobs were starting to disappear in the print world, the ones that were ready for the change quickly learned how to write for the Internet. Many of them adjusted to the change very well. Some of them are still stuck at an old print job waiting for whatever may come, even if that something never comes.

Learn how to evaluate what you are doing. Figure out the parts that have stopped working. Hold on tightly to the parts that are still important to the public, that are important to creating your success. Find new ways to replace the parts of what you're doing that don't work with new and fresh ideas. If you can try new things and discover something new that works then you will have an all new success. In this way you will never lose completely and success will always be within your grasp.

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