Succeeding Too Often is Failure (to Grow)
You ever play chess? I prefer to play chess against people who can whoop my butt, because I’ll have to play at my edge, and I’ll be sure to pick up some really good moves. Are you the kind of person who only plays chess against children because you want to think of yourself as a winner? Well, I’ve got news for you–if you are winning too often, you are truly a loser. You have play a game you could likely lose in order to really grow.
Photo credit: El Garza
Succeeding regularly is comfortable. I regularly succeed at making myself breakfast. But I’m 28 and of average to high intelligence, so I don’t put a check on my goal chart for cooking myself some eggs. I’m grateful for my ability to feed myself, but if I don’t have some goals I could and probably will fail at, then I’m not really living up to my potential.
I do not like to repeat successes. I like to go on to other things.
~ Walt Disney
Many people have no real goals, i.e. goals that matter deeply to them that they are actually working towards, goals that there is a good chance they could fail at–and that to succeed at them they’d need to seriously grow. It’s a shame, because unless you have goals like this, you are not really living or feeling the aliveness that comes from “living the dream.” And yes, the dream is like an always receding horizon, but the quest is still worth it.
A Brief History of My Successful Failures
I’ve been a part of several failed startups. How cool is that? I really went for it, tried to do something new and exciting and even world-changing, and it didn’t work. From these experiences I’ve learned a ton about…
- how to make ideals real
- when and how to get practical without losing vision
- how to work well with others
- why sometimes you do everything right and shit happens anyway, and all you can do is let it go and bounce back
- how to stay positive even after your ideals get shattered, your heroes sometimes act like assholes, and businesses you poured your heart into fall apart in 48 hours
(There’s the obligatory personal development blog bulleted list.)
But even having experienced the pain of business failure, I don’t understand how anyone could work a soul-sucking corporate job. Personally I think the 40 hour workweek is archaic, let alone the 50, 60, or 70 hour workweek. Of course, what do I want to do with my free time? Study, practice, create, dialogue with friends, write, and work on personal projects like this one.
Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
~ Winston Churchill
I’ve quit many jobs, risking failure and poverty, because I simply would not do the mind-numbing work that was being asked of me. Have I achieved success? Success by who’s criteria? I value my mind, my free-time, and the possibility for creating something unique and meaningful more than a steady and well-paid job, so by that criteria I am totally successful. For someone raising a family, or desiring to impress the neighbors by the size of their television, they will have a somewhat different criteria for achieving success. But no matter the criteria, if you are not failing often, you have become stale or your vision is too small.
On the personal front, I’ve had many failed relationships. My current relationship is overall quite beautiful and wonderful, but that in many ways is because I risked–and experienced–a great deal of failure. I grew up with intense social anxiety, so bad that until junior high I regularly peed myself in class because I was too shy to ask to use the bathroom. I had a crush on one girl from 3rd grade to 8th, and never once talked to her (although she was on my softball team for several years).
I never asked a girl out until college, where the first woman I kissed I ended up in a 2 1/2 year relationship with. I was a co-dependent, depressed pushover through most of the relationship, and when it ended, she took all my friends and I had to find new ones! Luckily I kept playing a bigger game, kept risking failure, and doing so with an open heart. I kept courageously going for what I wanted (failing even at that) and many years later, after many heartbreaks, I have a wonderful woman in my life. And at least every month there are challenges in our wonderful relationship! This is what happens when you are growing.
Risk Failure, One Day at a Time
I love talking to people who are smarter than me, which is one of the joys of hosting the Precision Change podcast. Today I interviewed David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. It was wonderful talking to him, in part because I suck at doing things. Really! I hate todo lists. I’m basically lazy–passionate, but lazy. I’d much prefer to sit around and think about things, or read something interesting, or just relax outside in the beautiful Boulder sun than to get something done. My friend Theo joked recently that I should write a book called GTOYP: Getting Things Off Your Plate.
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
But yet I love David Allen’s GTD system, because it gives me the tools to manage a weakness (doing) utilizing a strength (thinking). And David Allen himself is a creative philosopher type, like me, who created this system in order to help himself to stay organized and get things done.
When I first thought of emailing his company to get him for the podcast, I felt anxious. What if he thinks we are small potatoes and laughs? Am I worthy of his time? But I felt the fear and did it anyway. What are you putting off because you are afraid you might fail? If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly at first.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned from all of my failures is that when you are really trying to do something important, when you are really trying to change the world, you are probably going to fail hard and often. If you try new and audacious things, at times you are regularly going to look like an idiot and a flake. If you take the creative and unique path you were born to live, your family may disown you. If you think outside the box, people will think you’re crazy, and try to stuff you back into their box. But for those who want to live fully, doing anything less than fully expressing your unique gifts just won’t cut it.
“I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
~ Henry David Theoreau
Of course, failing too often, or purposely taking on extreme challenges can be dangerous and counter-productive. I have my fair share of personal experience here too. Don’t be stupid about the challenges you take on, but do regularly challenge yourself so that you continue to grow and express your unique gifts.
What can you risk failing at today?
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