Failure.
No one likes it yet we all do it. You set a goal in the present and then at some future time you don’t follow through as you had planned. Getting up early, passing an exam, calling someone back, playing an instrument, eating healthy, cleaning your house, the list goes on.
We give a lot of press to success, but tend to sweep failure under the rug like its not a part of the process. The truth is, until the day comes where you execute flawlessly on every task you commit to, you need to deal with failure, so you better get used to it.
Ray Dalio, the founder of one of the most successful hedge-funds in the US, has this to say:
“Embracing your failures is the first step toward genuine improvement; it is also why “confession” precedes forgiveness in many societies. If you keep doing this you will learn to improve and feel the pleasures of it.”
So how do we get good at dealing with failure? The same way you get good at anything in life: Practice. That sounds counter-intuitive, practicing failure? Yes. Not trying to fail, of course, but practicing your response to failure, when it inevitably occurs.
I can think of no easier gateway to practicing failure than to try and hold attention on the breath.
A 30 second exercise for you: Go ahead, right now, close your eyes and try and take just 10 full breaths without having a thought beyond the breath. Count ’1′, on the inhale, ’2′ on the exhale, ’3′ on the inhale, etc…
Did you make it to 10? Did your mind wander from the breath? When you noticed it wandered, how did you respond? With harsh judgement: “this is difficult, I’m not good at this” or “this is stupid, why am I doing this?” With observation: “wow, it’s not so easy to keep the mind on the breath…” Or did you simply return to counting?
Continuously practicing your response to failure can allow you to more skillfully respond to all the times when you do fail. This may cause you to discern helpful responses (understanding the ‘root causes’ behind the failure) from unhelpful ones (berating yourself for failing).
It’ll take time, but with practice you can become a master at failing…and perhaps anything else you put your mind to.
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Neat post Brandon. Thanks for sharing.
I recently tried running to the point of failure along the West Side highway in NY. I ran to complete exhaustion three times. Despite looking like a total wimp and flailing crazy I was able to keep my mind clear and focused for about 70% of the way through. I also ran a lot further than I thought I could.
All too often I think discussions on this topic stay up in the conceptual stratosphere. They should come down. Practical examples are needed and specific tools should be shared:
Tim Ferriss is a master at this:
1. Write down the worst case scenario and build in mitigating actions (watch the beginning of the video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjYcC59DFR0&feature=player_embedded
2. Analyze to painful levels of detail the best in the business (he did this with dancing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPE2_iCCo0w
Ramit Sethi is obsessed with psychology and exactly why people fail (hint: its not because of will power). This is a great post on a small driver behind failure that most people miss:
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/03/17/the-psychology-of-passive-barriers-why-your-friends-dont-save-money-eat-healthier-or-clean-their-garages/
I finished a run about 5 months ago. It was the furthest I had ever run not in a race (about 7 miles). When I finished I said to myself “I wonder if I could run this again? Right now.” So I tried to and did it. 14 miles. Taking up tasks you think you can’t complete (where you think you will fail) is a great way of shattering your own beliefs about what you can do.
What failure tests have you run?
Quite thought provoking, thanks for sharing.
One of the threads that I got from the 1st Tim Ferriss video and the Ramit link was about being as granular as possible on what’s holding you back. I think we tend to focus on how to get motivated, and hope that it will be strong enough to dispel fear or change behavior. The recommendation here is to take both fear and behavior change on head-on: “What is it, specifically, that I fear? How can I work to counteract that specific scenario?” and “Why didn’t I do XYZ? Because of ABC…So then how do I counteract ABC?” etc. There is a lot of truth to the “vagueness” holding you back from accomplishing something.
Additionally, I’ve found at times that what is holding me back is that I don’t actually want to accomplish the thing in the first place. I’m reminded of a quote: “When you don’t want to do something, one excuse is as good as another”
In terms of specific tools, there are two posts I’ve found helpful here:
1. The cognitive cost of doing things
The author identifies 7 ‘costs’ that need to be taken into account each time a task is performed. By knowing which cost is holding you back, you can properly account for it.
2. Firing your 5am coach:
Basic idea is that if you want to start waking up early (say, 5am), willpower is not enough. Your 5am ‘coach’ will continue to tell you to sleep in, no matter how resolved you are at other parts of the day. So you need to come up with ways around your 5am coach, which the author gets into.