Failure Only Feels Bad When You’re in the Middle of It
You don’t look back and grieve about past failures once you made it.
Most entrepreneurs know that startups across the globe have a terrifying rate of failure. Similarly, most athletes never make it to the top of their game.
And we all know how miserable failure feels — no matter if it’s a relationship that fails, a bad grade at school, a failed project, or a huge dream we can’t seem to turn into reality.
Knowing what you want but not getting it sucks. There’s no point in sugarcoating that reality.
But what most people miss is that it only sucks at that moment of failure.
If you lose a competition, move on, and win the next one, you won’t be as sad about the first loss anymore.
If you get divorced but end up meeting your soulmate and spending the rest of your life with someone who lights up your heart, the divorce won’t feel as painful anymore.
And if your first business fails, but your second ends up being widely profitable and successful, dealing with the failure of the first one suddenly becomes easy.
“Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
— Coco Chanel
The story about the horse
There’s a parable about a farmer whose horse ran away one day.
“How unlucky!” his neighbors told him.
“Good thing, bad thing, who knows,” said the farmer.
A week later, the horse came back come. “That’s amazing!” said everyone in the village.
Again, the farmer said: “Good thing, bad thing, who knows.”
A few days later, the farmer's son climbed up the horse, fell down, and broke his leg.
“How unlucky!” everyone says.
And once again, the farmer says, “Good thing, bad thing, who knows.”
The next day, all young men of the village are called into military service. Due to his broken leg, the son of the farmer is excused.
“Good thing, bad thing, who knows,” the farmer says.
The point of this story is to focus on the “what is” instead of the “what if”.
So often, we’re wondering about what could’ve happened if…
What if I’d received that investment for my business.
What if I that accident never happened and I could’ve followed a professional career in sports.
What if I’d started a Youtube channel back when it was easy.
What if I’d invested in Bitcoin in 2010.
The problem with what if is that nobody knows.
Maybe your life would be miserable if you’d invested in Bitcoin in 2010. Maybe it would be amazing. Who knows.
The harsh reality is that most what-ifs aren’t worth your time, and you’re better off by just moving on in life.
Overcoming failure is 1% strategy and 99% swallowing your pride
Quite often, we hold on to failures or missed opportunities because we believe we can change the situation, even though we actually can’t.
And the reality is, it’s damn hard to admit that you failed.
Realizing that your oh-so-perfect business idea was probably not that perfect is painful. And it’s even more frustrating if you told your colleagues, friends, and family about it and now have to admit that you’ve been wrong.
So it’s tempting to keep going and waste endless hours, even if you already know that your idea is meant for failure.
In the worst case, you additionally try to make it look good (e.g., on social media) so nobody can even doubt your greatness.
But by neglecting false decisions and a wrong path, you’re just manipulating your future.
Swallowing your pride and admitting that you’ve been wrong or that you made mistakes isn’t easy, but it’s highly efficient.
And the truth is that most success stories are based on lots of failures and mistakes anyway.
You can read as many great books as you want and have the greatest mentors on the planet, but you’ll likely still make a few mistakes if you have big ambitions in life.
What most people don’t understand is that life isn’t about avoiding mistakes or failure.
It’s about embracing all our experiences and emotions, including the negative ones.
In fact, your success wouldn’t be as interesting and fulfilling if it was easy to achieve. It’s the bumpy road that shapes your personality and adds interesting stories to your journey.
You don't know what you don't know until you overcome it
J.K. Rowling got rejected by 12 major publishers before Harry Potter got published.
Walt Disney was fired from The Kansas City Star because his editor felt he lacked imagination and had no good ideas. Later, Disney’s idea for Mickey Mouse and his theme park got rejected around 300 times.
Pablo Picasso is known for having created around 100 masterpieces in his career. What most people don’t know is that he created 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints and engravings, 300 sculptures and ceramics, and 34,000 illustrations during his 78-year career.
Rovio, a video game development company, launched 51 unsuccessful games before developing the world-famous game Angry Birds.
You bet that J.K. Rowling, Walt Disney, Pablo Picasso, and the founders of Rovio all felt miserable and frustrated when spending endless hours on their passion without any recognition or rewards.
Eventually, their perseverance paid off and they got rewarded for their efforts.
But in the middle of the rejections and failed projects, none of them knew what it was good for. And they probably asked themselves what if they could just get accepted and rewarded for their efforts.
J.K. Rowling might’ve been dreaming about a successful career as a fiction writer, but she surely didn’t know what would happen when she knocked on the door of the 13th publisher.
Success is a numbers game.
The more often that you choose courage, the more likely you’ll succeed.
That’s all easier said than done, especially when you find yourself in the middle of a frustrating failure, but it’s the harsh reality.
As James Altucher describes in The Power of No:
“Life is a series of failures punctuated by brief successes.”
Don’t rush through failure. Embrace it. Allow yourself to feel bad and grow out of your pain.
There’s no success story that’s not based on multiple mistakes and failures.
Your breakthrough might be closer than you might think. Just keep going.
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