If you want to succeed, you need to fail – a lot.
I hear it frequently. “I wish I could play guitar like you.”
My response? You can. You need to fail first.
It’s not like I’m a freaking rock star. I have a day job. And this writing side hustle. Guitar slinging isn’t exactly paying my bills. But, I can hold my own on the stage.
Honestly, though, the way people act about it, you’d think I used a guitar to break through the womb and came out ripping into righteous rock riffage as I took my first breath, throwing down some tasty riffs for the delivery nurses while they cleaned me off.
Truthfully, I didn’t know how to play guitar as an infant – shocker!
It Took Me a Long Time to Play at a Novice Level
I didn’t even pick up the guitar until my senior year in high school.
Guess what?
I sucked at it. My playing was loud and awful, emanating from my poor parent’s basement, seeking to invade and infect the ear canals of the entire block like some sort of aural virus.
In short, I was failing. Loudly. For hours on end.
Was I a failure?
Not at all.
I was a failer.
What’s the difference? Attitude, of course.
Check out this video from the Melbourne Guitar Academy to learn how much time spent failing it takes to succeed at guitar. He argues to be a hobbyist, you need to invest 100 hours.
My time investment to play at the novice level was probably more like several thousand hours.
Maybe I’m a slow learner, but either way, it’s a lot of time. It’s a lot of failing.
How to Be a Failer – Not a Failure
How do you become great at failing your way to succes? Here are a few techniques I find helpful:
Take risks
People don’t often fail inside their comfort zones. If you want to start failing your way to success, you have to be willing to step out on faith and take some risks.
Like any required skill, you can improve your performance in this area. The more risks you take, the less anxiety you (hopefully) feel about rolling the dice.
Admit when you’ve failed
Have you ever been a part of a project that had obviously failed, but the people on the team were too invested in it to admit it? Maybe you know someone in a failed relationship but can’t let go, or a dead end job in which they claim they’re stuck?
Don’t live in denial.
You must know when something is failing and stop.
Stop acting as if it isn’t. Stop moving further down the path of failure.
As soon as you know something isn’t working, it’s time to get busy figuring out your next steps.
Fail forward
Failing forward is a pretty common concept in business leadership courses. John Maxwell coined the phrase, and it has taken off.
Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward
John C Maxwell
I believe you are failing forward when you are identifying failures early and then assessing the causes and coming up with ideas to course correct or possibly scrap the entire idea and go a completely different direction.
Sometimes you have to start the whole thing over again
Recently, I had to restart the process of failing at the most basic elements of the guitar. When I received my brain cancer diagnosis, I had lost control of my left hand because the tumor was setting on the motor controls in my brain.
When I entered treatment, I had to begin the process of failing all over again to get my guitar skills back. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and you may have to rebuild.
Don’t let your ego get in the way. Be patient.
The build-back often happens much more quickly than the first build.
Recalibrate and Get Back at It
There’s a very common improvement methodology used by businesses around the globe. Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) is all about failing forward.
Plan your actions. Then do them and see if they got the results you were looking for.
If they did, great. If not, you’re failing forward as long as you act to change and try something else, starting the cycle over again.
Take risks, fail forward, and don’t give up.
That’s what separates the failers from the failures.
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