How to Succeed by Trying to Fail
Sometimes the best route to success is along the path that leads to failure.
We all have things that we’d like to accomplish in our lives, but some things are so scary we just don’t do them. Whether it’s asking that special someone to the high school dance or jumping on the Karaoke stage during the office holiday party, or actually singing once you’re on the Karaoke stage…sometimes we just can’t force our bodies to do the darn thing. Why? Because we just don’t want to? Not exactly!
Actually, we’re terrified of failure, but we’re not going to let anyone know about that. I’m sure that you, dear listener, aren’t afraid of anything. So today’s tip is just for you to pass on to your friends who might have fears that they need to get over. To make yourself—oops, I mean themselves—do the things you’re—I mean they’re—most afraid of, start collecting failures.
How to Play the No Game
Collecting failures is easy! Some people are really good at it. But we’re going to do it methodically.
First, choose a goal you’ve had for a long time, but have been avoiding due to fear. Thomas, Europa’s teenage son, is discovering that coming to grips with his cybernetic side is not easy. He’s in the denial stage, throwing himself into his human side as hard as he can. And what could be more human than pursuing his life-long dream of being a stand-up comedian?
Thomas is terrified. He’s sure he isn’t funny enough to entertain people. Yes, his mother/creator may be the secret overlord of the Eastern Bloc, but that just makes it harder. There, any form of humor is considered a political thought crime.
Flip Your Goal on its Head
Thomas is going for his goal. But when fear rears its ugly, slobbering head, going for the goal won’t work. Instead, go for failure. Explicitly.
Thomas’s new goal? To get boo’d off every stage in the Eastern Bloc. He signs up for every Open Mic Night he can. Because if he can perform and fail with gusto in front of dozens of audiences who have No Sense of Humor, he wins. Either he meets his goal to collect Boos, or he meets his goal of finally learning how to deliver the Svetlana-and-the-pierogie joke that he’s been working on since age seven. Thomas’s plan to collect failures is actionable and simple. Yours should be too.
Like most things, failing is more fun with a friend! So if you can’t find an expert to teach you how to jump into something, find someone who’s as much of a newbie as you and fail together. For moral support, Thomas convinces his friend Sam to sign up too. Like Thomas, Sam dreams of the life of a stand-up comic, but hasn’t had the courage to pursue it.
Use Competition to Turbo-charge the Failure Game
Now challenge your friend to a contest of failure. Thomas and Sam decide to do this by seeing who can get booed off stage the fastest each time they perform at an Open Mic. Is this crazy? Of course! But so is standup comedy. And there’s no better way to get over an irrational fear than by doing something irrational yourself, and exposing yourself to it over and over and over again.
By making a competition out of failure, Sam and Thomas can focus on the competition, rather than obsessing about the scary activity itself. They get excited about telling the best worst jokes—ones that make the room cough uncomfortably. And of course, after a few weeks, they keep stumbling on jokes that make the audience laugh. It turns out that standup isn’t actually that bad, and their fears start to melt away.
Collecting Failures Helps you Learn Better
Why does this work? For starters, when you fail at failing, you succeed at success. So it’s really a no-lose situation.
But playing the No Game, you encourage yourself to agonize over those moments, studying them in great detail in a way you never would have if you’d just seen them as simple victories. Then, outside of the No Game, you can use what you learned from all that studying to up your success rate.
Collecting Failures Overcomes Your Fear
Failing constantly and living to fail again also helps overcome your visceral fear of failure. Unless you’re attempting a bungee jump off of the Burj Khalifa, failure doesn’t justify fear. For personal goals like asking that special someone to the school dance (and by “school dance,” I mean, “naked twister,” if you’re over 21), there is almost a zero percent chance of danger when things don’t go according to plan. Once you teach that to your body by failing over and over, you’ll have an easier time going for scary, but not actually dangerous, goals.
Collecting Failures Keeps Us Confident
Shooting for the “no” also keeps us in a confident frame of mind. When we go into a situation wanting to hear a “yes,” we’re afraid of hearing “No.” But if we go in wanting a “no” and (naturally) expecting one, there is no chance we’ll be disappointed by the answer. And a zero percent chance of disappointment breeds confidence like nothing else.
Add that all up, and you can see why, by setting your sights on the No Game, more failure will lead you to success! Grab a friend and structure your failure competition. You’ll trick your brain into obsessing over successful moments, calm down your fears, and boost your confidence. You’ll try new, scary things—and chances are, succeed at them way more than you think. So what are you waiting for? Success is waiting at the end of your “Nos.”
I’m Stever Robbins. Follow GetItDoneGuy on Twitter and Facebook. I run Get It Done accountability groups for entrepreneurs and self-employed people. Learn more at Get It Done Groups.
Image of businessman failing to jump hurdles © Shutterstock
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About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
