I love to fail!

Our attitude towards failure gets formed very early in life. Usually in school…and it never just goes away. All through school, we perhaps take hundreds of tests, exams, assignments etc. And we are in BIG trouble if we fail even ONCE. So we are scared of failure. But real life is different. In real life failure is essential for us to move to the next level. Failure is a great teacher.

This is perhaps the biggest difference between real life and school. But by the time we finish school we are so conditioned that we are unable to bridge the gap. We unconsciously try and avoid situations which could result in failure. We therefore live our life like the straight line stock!!

Failure and creativity

Fear of failure hampers creativity. It’s not unusual for an individual to present a new idea, see it fail, then never again try something new. Fear of adverse criticism narrows creative potential.

On the other hand, a truly creative person thoroughly examines the failure to identify what went wrong and why. He turns failure into a learning experience.

Every bit of solid theory and evidence demonstrates that it is impossible to generate a few good ideas without also generating a lot of bad ideas.

The greatest failure of all, of course, is not to attempt a new idea.

Failure is not the opposite of success

Are success and failure opposites of each other? The answer is NO. The energy that creates great ideas also creates errors. Not achieving success is usually termed as failure. And ‘failure’ is so looked down upon that we sometimes avoid taking a shot at success. We forget that success and failure are actually neighbours or pals and success may only be an inch away from failure! Looking at failure as an antithesis of success is to lose our creative powers. In any case, if we are successful every time, it means our goal is not big enough!

If you aren’t allowed to fail, then you won‚Äôt risk anything. Then every idea has to be a “safe” idea, and you are no longer creating. You are simply doing it the way it has always been done.

A useful phrase to keep in mind is ‘THERE IS NO FAILURE, ONLY FEEDBACK’. This is a great thought that works especially well when we are trying out new things and thinking of new solutions.

We need not fear failure but we should try and learn how to fail intelligently!! When we try and not succeed, it is a good failure. The only ‘bad failure’ is not trying and not learning from mistakes.