Failure has a branding problem
Pop quiz: Which term is most readily associated with failure?
Bad
Good
I’m guessing most people’s intuitive first response is; bad. Then you may correct yourself ‘I don’t really think that - but most others do.’
There has been a lot written about the benefits of failure. Yet we still naturally tend to resist doing things that have a good chance of resulting in failure. Sometimes this is for good reasons. It stops people from wanting to have a scrap with a crocodile, cross busy roads without looking, or tell your boss what you really think of them just prior to a pay review.
But we don’t seem to have worked out that for most endeavours which inspire fear of failure, actual failure amounts to the equivalent of falling over and landing on a comfy pillow. Your skin remains intact, your house is still there when you get home, you’re not a social pariah, and haven’t landed in jail.
The thing we are most scared of is loss of face. Looking like a dick. A loser. Such is the world we live in today. We are far more often frightened of emotional harm than physical harm. The old adage ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me’ could not be further from the truth. We care disproportionately about what others will think - when the reality is they don’t care because they are too busy worrying about what others think of them!
When you deconstruct this, you’ll probably find most of our fears are imagined rather than real. We then unwittingly stoke these fears by consuming common narratives designed to capture our attention. ‘The battler succeeding against all odds’ stories for example. The subtext here is they’ve narrowly avoided being an also-ran, or worse, a loser. The internet and its wonderful ability to let idiots share shit and carefully curated misrepresentations has quite a bit to answer for.
‘Failure is a learning opportunity’ those self-help gurus cry. ‘You just found out a way something didn’t work.’ ‘You’re one step closer to your goal as you’ve eliminated a path that leads in the wrong direction.’ ‘You learn more from failure than success.’ And on it goes.
There seems to be an endless appetite for people to consume this type of positive talk. But does it change our attitude towards failure? I suggest it’s about five eights of f-all. Because if it did work, then over time interest in it would wane as it became an accepted and practiced belief, and therefore the production of it would tail off (but this is about as likely to happen as Trump and Biden teaming up in Dancing with the Stars!).
Rationally, we agree with the self-helpers. And we don’t mind giving something new a crack in private. But in public, well that’s another story. We’d rather drink a mouse smoothie than announce to the world we plan to lose 5 kgs in the next 3 months (but if that’s all you had to eat, you’d spank that target! - hmmm maybe there’s a business idea there? A weight loss retreat where the food is gross, but still nutritionally complete?).
If I look at myself, I was happy to belt out my first blog post. But when it came to publishing it, I was mildly packing myself. Why was I so scared? What was the worst that could’ve happened? People think Andrew is a bit arse at writing? They tell others that I shouldn’t give up my day job? Not quite the end of the world is it?
I nervously hit publish. The world remained on its axis. And 24 blog posts later it’s still turning. None of my fears materialised. Quite the opposite. I discovered a new creative outlet. It led me to write a book (where I experienced the exact same fears again when I hit publish).
Good things came to pass. I’ve enjoyed making sense of my thoughts and learning to write. I’ve given cause for the odd person to smile and reflect. I’ve made my mother laugh with delight many times, and she is prouder than a proud thing when telling anyone who cares to listen I’d written a book. In hindsight the perceived risk and real risk were so out of whack it was stupid.
So my solution to removing this stupidity and fear of failure? We retire the word failure and replace it with a new and improved version. We rebrand it to oddtnswsig (onlydicksdonttrynewshitwheresuccessisntguaranteed). Do you think it will catch on?
