Humans are preconditioned to avoid pain and to move toward pleasure. We avoid failure because we associate that with pain. As a society, we also view failure as a sign of weakness and defeat.
However, you may be surprised to know that you should embrace failure and fail often. Here are eight reasons why:
1. Failure is a great way to learn.
Those who fail the most, learn the most. When you fail, you learn what works and what doesn’t.
Venture capitalists have been known to invest in entrepreneurs that have undergone multiple entrepreneurial failures. For some, an entrepreneur who has never experienced failure is untested and has not learned from adversity.
2. You discover what’s missing.
Failure is simply a signal that something is missing. Failure reveals what needs to change for you to succeed. Through failure, you uncover gaps in yourself, your strategies, your systems, your business and your team. You learn where your weaknesses or limitations are and what needs to change or be improved.
Through failure, you discover where the obstacles are. You can then formulate a plan to push through the barriers, climb over them or go around them.
3. Failure makes you pause.
Failure forces you to pause. It gives you time to analyze what you are doing and consider whether you should be pivoting, continuing or giving up. It makes you consider, “How badly do I really want this?”
Without time for reflection, you may end up wasting effort, energy, resources and time on the wrong ladder.
4. Failure may be a sign of coming success.
Failure can be a sign of coming success. Big failures are often accompanied by big achievements. You cannot hope to achieve anything of real substance by staying small, insulated and safe.
5. Failing often builds an immunity to fear.
A fear of failure limits you. If you are afraid to fail, you are also afraid to take risks and scale fast. A fear of failure stumps growth. By failing often, you learn to build an immunity to fear. When you are not afraid of failure, you can embrace feedback and not be paralyzed by criticism.
6. Failure builds entrepreneurial character traits.
Failure is necessary for the building of valuable character traits for entrepreneurial success. Character traits such as tenacity, perseverance, and resilience are all vital for any kind of long-term success. Your ability to push through failure where others quit will lead you on the road to success.
7. Failure sweetens success.
Success is so much sweeter after you have experienced failure. When you can recall humiliating moments of failure before you achieved success, the success feels so much more valuable. You also don’t take success for granted because you know how hard it was to come by.
8. Failure makes for a great comeback story.
Failure makes excellent comeback stories. Remember how Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he founded, before returning back to it just over 10 years later as its CEO? Failure makes you more “human” to others. It makes you more relatable. Failure that is earned and didn’t come easy increases others admiration of you.
Failure can also motivate the people around you such as your employees, your investors, and your peers to work harder for you, stand with you or offer more assistance.
There is another great advantage of having multiple failures on your belt — it keeps you humble. An entrepreneur who has never experienced failure tends to be arrogant. Even worse, this arrogance can feed the false belief that you are infallible and expose you to devastating mistakes down the line.
Failure may hurt but we should view it as a positive experience. We should fail and fail often. Because in doing so, we also open ourselves to opportunities for success.
Raj Isaac Abraham
Entrepreneur
https://www.facebook.com/Raj-Isaac-Abraham-765159050257036/
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