Succeeding At Failing
Succeeding At Failing
If you want to succeed at new habits, you have to learn to succeed at failing.
It is extremely overwhelming to get caught up in wanting to be really good at something right away. Because of how discouraging it can be to attempt something you know you might fail at, it is important to keep yourself grounded through the process by sticking to a plan that you create beforehand.
You can immunize yourself against big letdowns by implementing experiments where you will fail in tiny ways. Don’t like public speaking? Your voice wobbles and you stumble over your words, feeling more self-conscious by the moment? Make your experiments small. Record yourself speaking one sentence and then watch the video, or simply ask one question aloud in a class discussion where you don’t have to speak up. By exposing ourselves in small doses to the strength we’re trying to build, we are less likely to suffer serious consequences if we fail, and we might even triumph. With each step, we strengthen our immunity to the downsides of a new habit, increasing our chances of acing it in the future.
Additionally, hold yourself accountable by including someone else into the plan. Our enthusiasm at setting big goals for ourselves is matched by our fear of failure down the road. We convince ourselves that today is the wrong day to get started to get better at underwater, or make more 100s on a tight interval. But there’s a window of opportunity between when we dream of our goal and before our inner voice tells us that it actually might be uncomfortable to do such a thing. Use this window to make a commitment to someone else. For example, if you want to get better at kicking underwater, tell the person going before you in your lane to ask you how many kicks you took off of each wall every time they get a chance. By vocalizing your intention to be proactive about your goal, we create momentum to get out of our heads and make ourselves accountable to someone else. Once the declaration is out of your head and received by someone else, it’s much harder to retract.
Finally, do not be afraid to share your experience with someone else. As the saying goes, it’s not that you fall that matters, but how you get up. Similarly, when you fail in small ways, identify what you’ve learned in the process. We tend to evade the limelight when we haven’t landed the perfect formula. Instead, ramp up the advantages of learning to downplay the shame of failure. Individually, you can reflect on your own learnings and share it with your lane buddies or simply have it handy to flip back to later on your own. Additionally, start with more tentative language as you test out new skills. Framing something as an experiment, beta, or draft places you in a learner mindset. It makes perfection unnecessary, allows you to move faster, and get helpful feedback and buy-in along the way.
Our habits and mindset allow us to think big but keep us stuck, fearing we won’t swim big enough or well enough to follow through. Dipping our toes into failing in small doses opens a path to having a healthier mindset when experiencing failure. Switching habits is easier when the price isn’t steep failure, and the reward is big success.
Go SMAC!
Julian
