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Monday, July 28, 2008

Strive for Spectacular Failure

You’re not always going to be right or act right, no matter what. That’s just a reality of life. But avoiding failure at all costs, costs way too much.

In The Last Lecture, a new book by Randy Pausch, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, the author talks about going for your dreams. He advocates pursuing the things that really matter to you, even if you’re not sure you can reach these. Even if you’re afraid you can’t reach them. He’s even given awards to his students who have reached for—and failed to reach—high goals.

Failure isn’t lethal, but not trying anything new and risky may kill the life in your life.

There’s no denying that it feels bad to fail. The fear of this experience is pretty much universal. Most of us hate failing. You can’t live an engaged, successful life, though, by staying in bed with the covers over your head.

Some individuals grew up as “the good kid” in their family. Maybe another sibling got in trouble a lot. Maybe their parents gave them a preferential role. Regardless, there are some who are very attached to always being seen as doing the right thing. This can be a handicap because the process of making choices involves the possibility of making a choice with consequences you don’t like. This is how human beings learn. No risk means limited learning.

The important thing is to reach for what you want. Try big, new things. If you’re paying attention, you’ll find the lessons in your failures. Don’t ignore these. Take your failure and look at it as objectively as possible. Use it. With the information you can gather, you have a better chance of aiming more accurately next time. Any large endeavor will naturally involve learning. Learning brings with it the possibility—the probability—of failure. You will fail. You need to process these experiences in order to have a chance of reaching for and finding your dreams.

If you’re going out on a limb, make it a spectacular limb. Go for the gusto. Reach for your own dreams and know that these will evolve as you go. If you’re involved in pursuing what you want, you’ll get clearer about what you really want. Failure can help you with this.

Don’t be ashamed of failing. The greater loss is in not going after what you want.