36. Enjoy your falls

and fail often

If you are going to be brave, you are going to fall. That is how it works. There is no getting around it. Courage means trying things that are uncertain. It means taking steps where the outcome is not guaranteed. And when you do that, you will fail sometimes, often many times.

Most of us grow up thinking failure is bad. From school to work, we are taught that success is good and failure is something to avoid. Because of that, we start to fear failure and feel embarrassed when it happens. Failure is often seen as the opposite of success. It is definitely not. In most cases, failure is part of the same path that leads to success. You fail, you learn, you adjust, and then you succeed.

When you think about it, every skill we learned, came through failures. We learned to ride bicycle after falling. We learned to drive a car after stalling it. That’s true in life too - when I look back at my “failures” they were the foundation of the life I have today. The startups I shut down, the rejections I’ve received etc.

As long as you are healthy and alive, every failure teaches you something. It helps you understand what went wrong and how to do better next time. In that way, failing is as valuable as winning. You can lose the outcome but still gain the lesson.

Be curious when you fail. Ask what you learned. Enjoy the process of learning, even when it comes through mistakes. Every time you fail, you move a little closer to doing things better. Once you free yourself from the societal definition of failures, you can freely explore and fail often.

Try to fail often. That does not mean being careless. Just try new things and step out of your comfort zone. Each time you try, you learn something new about yourself and your work. The thing is, when you aim high and get out of your comfort zone, even your “falls” are going to put you in a better place than you started. When you fail, you still make progress because you are no longer standing still.

Let each failure teach you something. The goal is not to avoid failure but to use it to get better. Failing often means you are trying often, and that is how you grow.

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