Failing is what we’re here to do.

Failure is such an awesome part of life and should be celebrated rather than avoided. It’s ironic, really. We tend to treat failure as a stand-in for death. When we fail, we often feel like we’ve died a small death. What we staked our hopes on didn’t pan out, and now a feeling of dread tingles up our spine like a chilly shiver, reminding us that we were never the person we thought we were — and perhaps never will be.

Weird, right?

But that’s how a lot of people think about failure, even if they don’t realize it.

I’ve started to grasp just how important failure is for the creation of anything. Without risking failure, there’s almost no possibility of success because fear will keep you immobilized.

This isn’t exactly groundbreaking advice. We’ve all heard about the importance of embracing failure before. But there’s a difference between understanding it as a motivational quote and actually living your life not just accepting failure as a possibility, but actively seeking to fail as much as possible.

It’s the practical application of failure that I hope to bring to your attention in this piece.

The Inevitability of Failure

The first and most important realization is this:

Failure is the ultimate end state — we all fail.

Think about it. There’s nothing else but failure. We’ll all grow old and die. Eventually, the Earth will become a cold, lifeless rock floating in space, and no one will care what you did or how you did it.

If you can fully grasp this, you’ll be set free from your concerns about failure — because, in a way, you’ve already failed.

So, what is there to worry about?

There’s nothing you can do to stop failure, so you might as well try to enjoy it as an inevitable part of life and make the most of the freedom that embracing failure gives you.

It’s Not Personal

As mentioned previously, we tend to experience failure as a stab in the heart. The act of failing seems to be a direct attack on our identity and self-worth. In other words, we take it personally.

Instead, why not try to view failure as an objective occurrence?

Yes. Failure happens. But there’s no reason to see it as negatively as we do. It’s a learning experience; it moves us one step closer to our goal.

With this attitude, we become more detached from the outcome. Whether we fail or succeed doesn’t really matter because we know that it’s the acting and growth that come through action that ultimately moves us forward.

A helpful mindset to adopt is that of ‘becoming a professional,’ as described by Steven Pressfield in his insightful book The War of Art:

“The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist. He will sit down, and he will do his work. He knows that by turning up each day as a pro, he separates himself from failure. Failure does not define him — because he continues on, regardless.” — Steven Pressfield

It’s important to separate your feelings about failure from the reality of it. Your feelings have nothing to do with your long-term success unless you let them. If you constantly dwell on your failures, you’ll become preoccupied with them rather than focusing on the possibility of success. It becomes a limiting belief and often a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Failure as Feedback

We enter this world knowing nothing, and it’s only through failure that we’re able to slowly begin to understand reality and how to operate within it.

As young children, we experience failure constantly. Simple tasks like learning to walk or brushing our teeth are challenging, but through repeated failures and treating them as feedback, we master these skills until they become second nature.

With this in mind, we can think of smaller failures as temporary setbacks in our journey toward mastering any aspect of life. Think about the last time you failed and how the lessons from that experience have enriched your life in ways you might not even fully appreciate.

Fail Often, Fail Fast

Time to reframe the way we think about failure. Instead of trying to avoid it, let’s imagine a world where everyone thought of failure as something to aim for.

By understanding that failure is a prerequisite for success, we can pursue failure as often and quickly as possible, thereby reaching success more swiftly.

And remember, failure doesn’t have to take the form of huge mistakes that turn your life upside down and cause chaos. Instead, you can aim to build resistance to the fear of failure by being open to experiencing micro-failures. These are small but real situations that you put yourself in every day, which have a high likelihood of failure. The more you do this, and the more you fail, the more you’ll stop running away from the experience of failure and realize that it’s akin to watering a plant and helping it grow.

So let’s get moving, people.

You should be thinking about these questions:

• Where are the failures at?

• What are the situations I can put myself in which offer the possibility of failure?

• How can I learn to enjoy failure?

After reading this piece, I encourage you to consider ways you can introduce more challenges into your life that offer the possibility of failure. Don’t run away from this, but actually take on the challenge and enjoy the failure likely to come with it. Do this enough times, and not only will you become immune to the fear of failure, but you’ll also find yourself growing more quickly than you ever thought possible.

Let me know how you plan to embrace failure more often.

Ben Worrall