BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): 

Some degree of failure is almost always required to achieve meaningful progress. The ability to persist in the face of failure is the hallmark of a high achiever. Yet, failure is often unpleasant, so most people struggle to adopt a mindset that embraces this facet of life. While there is nothing inherently noble in failure, the stigma surrounding it can choke out potential avenues for growth.

Build failure into your daily life to normalize this essential step toward personal and professional progress, harnessing your feelings of frustration to propel you forward. In The Plan, we’ll show you practical steps to build comfort around failure.  

The Plan:

A failure-tolerant, growth-oriented mindset is a superpower. To adopt this point of view, you’ll need to get used to failure, take a structured approach to learning from it, and find ways to leverage the frustration of missteps productively. Here’s our plan:

Pick up a hobby that allows you to experiment with failure in a low stakes environment

The idea here is to choose something that you do not already possess a natural ability for. Look for something that will be uniquely difficult for you, where failure will be a constant part of the journey. If you tend to be uncoordinated, perhaps you could learn to juggle. If you’re nervous about public speaking, you could join an improv group. The key is to find something where failure is inevitable, but, outside of some embarrassing moments, not harmful.

Visualize the effects of failure

There may be no clearer example of the effects of failure, than weight lifting (which makes a fantastic hobby for the previous step). While the exact mechanics of muscle growth are still being studied, the general concept is that hypertrophy (growth of muscle size) is impacted by the amount of time the muscle is kept under tension, and is particularly triggered by working to failure, i.e. the point at which a weight can no longer be lifted. Failure literally becomes the goal, because it is understood that this is necessary for growth. Failure becomes synonymous with best effort.

There are two distinct types of failure: growing pains (failures necessary for growth) and setbacks (failures that derail progress). In the case of weight lifting, safely failing on a lift is a growing pain, whereas injuring yourself from bad form would be a setback. 

• At the outset of a new project, take some time to visualize the potential ways in which you could fail. What are the setbacks? Can these be avoided or mitigated? 
• Reframe growing pains as step-goals toward success, and praise the effort that went into them.

Weaponize the frustration of defeat

While “don’t get mad, get even” is a terrible piece of advice for our relationships, it may be fitting when it comes to failure. The research tells us that emotional reactions to failure are effective in spurring us to action.

• Getting used to failure doesn’t mean accepting it. Failure should offend you. 
• Use the feelings of frustration and disappointment to light a fire inside you. Make a vow to yourself, not that you won’t fail again, but that no failure will ever defeat you.
• Can you take the insult of failure as a challenge to try harder, to be even more audacious next time?

Add a consideration of failures into your self-reflection and gratitude practices

In weight lifting, there is a window after training in which you need to take in sufficient amounts of protein in order for your muscles to grow. If you neglect this, the exercise will have limited results. Similarly, use the window of time after a failure to reflect, learn, and grow. Do not waste this opportunity.

Remember that failure is often subjective. Your concept of missing the mark, may look like someone else's idea of a rousing success. To help keep things in perspective, add some time to reflect on failures into your day to day life. Two great places for this are your end of day ritual or your gratitude practice.

• Can you find a way to feel grateful for the effort that you made, even if it failed?
• Express gratitude for the fact that you were able to make the attempt. Not everyone can.