Learning to fail by ‘intentionally failing’ to learn is a thing.
Yes, intentionally failing in order to learn is a thing that you should learn if you haven’t already.
Here me out on this.
In the world of software, tech companies use a model called Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
MVP’s are used when they have a big product / launch idea, rather than waiting to roll out the entire enchilada, they will test the market and launch only a couple of the basic ideas and features.
They do this knowing that most oftentimes the market will not respond favorably and their idea was not what they thought it would be.
So they will use this feedback, aka failure, to either make a few tweaks or shut the project down altogether.
This has been referred to as “Failure as a Feature”.
Quoting Steph Smith, “Failure is a feature, not a bug. Leaving no room for failure focuses your efforts on maintaining the status quo, instead of innovating toward something better.”
The principal here is the viewpoint they have of failure:
Failure is expected to occur more frequently than a success and the failure is celebrated because it is a discovery as to what is not working which means they are one step closer to what is working.
If you are one that fears failure to the point of inaction, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice.
Every great success was preceded by numerous and countless failures before ‘success’ was achieved.
In other words, use wisdom in your moves rather than just blindly ‘guessing’ your way forward.
I tell my team all the time to make intelligent mistakes.
We welcome these.
What we don’t like are lazy mistakes.
So make smart and intelligent failures.
The point is, you need to fail more and fail wisely.
Failing is education.
Fail forward, fast.
Continually be moving towards something bigger while realizing there will be some speed bumps in the road.
You will actually get momentum by learning to fail and extracting lessons quicker and quicker.
Another way to frame this would be to take ‘Little Bets’ often along the way.
Little, intelligent bets with the odds in your favor, over and over again will start to pay off big over time.
Look, people fail all the time, unfortunately many of them will not learn from the failure.
Don’t be Dumb.
And don’t be too fearful to fail.
Go out and fail a little.
Failure is only hard if you don’t learn and grow from it.
Fail forward while learning as you go.
Through your failure, you learn what DOESN’T work and because of that failure, is precisely how you will discover the way that DOES work for you.
