WEEK 91: FAILURE AS AN EXPERIENCE

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure, is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.  

Denis Waitely

REFLECTIONS (learnings and actions): I have been listening to the audiobook Pyscho Cybernetics for the last month or so, and it has been transformational. I am learning profound insights similar to when I read Josh Waitzkin's book The Art of Learning. Both books teach ways to view and use failure to your advantage.

Now, failure is such a funny thing. It is something we try to avoid at all costs, but is something you must do (over and over again) if you want to succeed at anything you choose.

Why is this? Because failure itself is associated with being wrong, looking stupid in front of otter's (illusion), and sticking out from the crowd. 

I have learned through the LYP that failure, or success, are really just experiences. 

Some of you might argue, but I am learning from people who are crushing it in both life and business, and they view these two things with the same mentality.

What is it?

Well, before I tell you I want you to rewind and go back to your Middle School years. Yes, those awkward years where you were dealing with acne, insecurity, and a whole sleu of other issues. 

If you are like me, you probably had to do a Science fair project in one of those formative years. State a hypothesis, test it, learn from it, and then write up your conclusion.

I actually did my experiment to see if it was truly a 50 - 50 chance of flipping a coin. Come to find out, it is not!

I regress, now back to the LYP. 

Although you have probably not thought of those projects for some time, it actually has huge ramifications in your life today. 

What you did not know is, that experiment laid the groundwork for success, and I am going to tell you how. 

Imagine if you could tackle anything in your life with the same format. State a hypothesis, test your hypothesis, learn, and then write up your conclusion?

Imagine the growth if you could do this automatically?

If you could failure, or success, could be viewed as experiences. 

Now this leads me to my first major point. If you want to succeed...in whatever you choose, you must apply this same approach. Or simply put, view both failure and success as a MEANS TO AN END, not an END themselves. 

Like your science fair project, you are going make an educated guess, then test it, learn from it, but instead of writing a conclusion, you will make the modifications to improve the process. 

Failure looses it stranglehold over you when it is viewed in this maner. The end result is a MEANS TO AN END, not an END itself. 

Furthermore, here is another action you can take to use failure to your advantage. 

Ready for it....ACT AS IF....

What do I mean by this?

Well, you will never truly be 100% ready to start anything, that is why you just start. You will learn from action. 

Taylor and Chris, who run Traffic and Funnels, live by this and are always creating products which have minimum viability and then launch them. Their results?

A business that grew from 15k a month to now 500k a month. That is right, no miss print there.

Failure often times stops us in our tracks as we think we need to know every aspect before we start. Think about the last time you tried something new.

Did you get to a point where you did not know what to do next? How did you feel? What did you tell your self?

It is safe to bet, that it was something similar to " You can not do this, what are you thinking?"

Now imagine, instead you said "This is not an END, but a MEANS TO AN END." 

How would your persepctive change?

For me, this has been instrumental when I have been faced with huge uncertainty in my businesses? I could just believe the negative thoughts that surface...

OR

I can ACT AS IF I CAN...as I know the result is a MEANS TO AN END, not an END itself.

This has allowed me to take action over and over again, thus enabling me to accelerate towards my ultimate outcome.

Want to crush failure and use it to your advantage?

Then use this killer jab, upper cut combo to knockout failure!

1. View results as a MEANS TO AN END, not an END themselves.

2. ACT AS IF...as you know the result is a mere stepping stone to where you want to get. 

What Went Well?

Crystalizing how to take massive action towards achieving our dreams by using failure as an advantage. 

What is something we can improve? What actions can we take next week?

Presence. Being physically and mentally in one place.

What is something to avoid next week?

Non-presence.

-----
PLANNING (Implementation Intention):  You will follow through 2X to 3X more likely to complete your weekly task than you normally would just by filling in the following statement.

I plan to complete the weekly task [day] at [time] in [location]. 

A reminder you might have to use multiple Implementation Intentions in order to follow through.

EXECUTION (strategies used):  From week to week, I use a combination of many strategies. There are always some which are used more than others depending on what comes up, but I wanted to offer a link to all them at once. 

My advice is to identify the I CAN'T statement you tell yourself during the most. Then find a strategy below the statement which resonates with you, and then start using it. 

Enjoy!

STRATEGY LIST