I find it fascinating how people turn the frustration of failure into success.
Reading about business people, especially Richard Branson, I realized that successful people will try something, fail, try something else, fail, learn, try something else and then succeed.
As I’d read this, I’d think to myself “That sounds exhausting! Failing constantly! It must be frustrating.” As I continued reading and growing in my professional life, I reached a conclusion: successful people still feel frustration from failure, but they do something different with it, and this is part of why they (later) succeed.
Originally, when something in my life didn’t work as expected, I would feel:
“That didn’t work.” “Man, what happened?” “I suck.” “I shouldn’t even be trying to do this.” “How does everyone else do this? Dah.” “I give up, for now at least.”
With more reflection, I broke it down into sequential feelings, which I’ll call a “thought chain”. Mine was:
I failed… so..
- I made a mistake so…
- I’m not good at this so
- I’m a bad person so
- I feel bad so
- I want to distract myself
- I don’t want to feel this way again so
- I don’t want to fail at this again so
- I don’t want to try again
- I don’t want to fail at this again so
- I feel bad so
- I’m a bad person so
- I’m not good at this so
As I read about CEOs and big thinking types, I saw in their actions a different thought chain:
I failed… so..
- I didn’t understand something about this process
- I need to learn something to get it right next time
- I’ll examine others who got it right
- I’ll read the directions/books about how to do this
- I need to learn something to get it right next time
- Some other person lead to this not work
- Identify and talk to that person
- Some random event made this not work
- Try again
- I made a mistake
- IF: Others make this same mistake and eventually succeed
- Then this seems doable
- See what others are doing and emulate
- Simply try again
- Then this seems doable
- IF: Others don’t make this mistake
- Check again what differences exist between myself and those correctly performing (assumption: same situation-> same result)
- IF: there isn’t a clear difference between them and I
- Feel I am not good at XXX
- Decide to do something I am good at
- (very low probability) Decide that I am a bad person (and thus: feel bad, distract myself, stop trying)
- Feel I am not good at XXX
- IF: there isn’t a clear difference between them and I
- Check again what differences exist between myself and those correctly performing (assumption: same situation-> same result)
- IF: Others make this same mistake and eventually succeed
I like to think of the frustration as emotional energy that is then routed along one of the above thought chains and eventually results in an action being taken. The resulting action will likely make you more successful (ie trying again, examining others, etc) or less successful (ie distracting oneself, avoiding failure by not trying again, etc).
So how do we turn frustration into success? By re-routing the energy that comes from frustration. Whenever you feel a thought chain leading to “I’m a bad person” you should probably turn it around and route that energy into something more likely to succeed. Look at others, re-evaluating if the current task is the best way to achieve the given aim, and simply trying again are much better places to set your mind. It isn’t easy, but I do find it works. What do you think?
Love this post.
One related concept that I think is powerful is the notion of whether at some fundamental level, the world is “OK” or “not OK”. Are things in the universe as they should be? Am I as I “should” be? Or is there something fundamentally wrong with how the world is, and how I am?
I believe that CEOs/big-thinker types/”successful” people deal with failure in a more productive way because they have developed the ability to be “OK” with themselves and OK with how the world is, regardless of what happens out in the world. This feeling of OK-ness is generated internally, not based on external stimulus. It’s an extremely powerful and to me, productive way of looking at the world.
Thanks for putting these thoughts out there. This is great.
Jordy, I deeply agree. The general OK-ness means there is less negative energy and, really, it’s less “frustrating”. It’s just more “surprising”. And it is much easier to route the surprised energy in a healthy way than the negative/frustrating energy. Thanks for the insight.
Isn’t “re-routing the energy that comes from frustration” also called “enthusiasm” or “passion”?
I think any great inventor or innovator breathes these two, otherwise he would never reach OK-ness with the world. Felix Wankel is an other great example for an engineering mind that spent his entire life to get one silly idea right.
Good post–thanks for the reminder. We can re-route when we remember not to take things personally and to trust in our ability to create. Act with a firm persuasion, fail if necessary, and simply iterate.
Here’s William Blake: “Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?” He replied, “All poets believe it does. And in ages of imagination, this firm persuasion removes mountains; but many are not capable of firm persuasion of anything.”
Negative energy/emotion is useless and can be completely avoided by realizing that its cause is the misaligned of reality with an idea about it. Negativity is choosing the broken idea and reason is choosing reality.
Friedemann, I agree, often people to re-route their frustration, or surprise, into positive action show the most enthusiasm or passion. I’m not sure if this is the same thing or overlapping things, sometimes the language of these issues is tough to separate. There is that quality that makes trying again possible that the truly great have one way or another.
David, the “firm persuasion” is something fasinating. In a way, a personal belief is undeniably true and I’m continually amazed how belief in the face of obstacles makes things happen. There are also cases of belief going down paths that don’t work and never realizing it and I don’t know how to tell one from the other sometimes. It is the stuff that moves mountains though, no denying.
Brandon, that is a great, concise statement. It’s hard to agree with at first, but upon reflection very hard to disagree with.
Thanks for the great feedback on this post, it’s taught me and inspired me to write more soon.
Hey Darius, I like this post (and also the previous responses).
This is a topic I’ve thought about a lot. It’s indeed easy to interpret failures as indicating there’s something wrong with me rather than with my approach.
The more people think something is genetically predetermined, the more likely they are to fall into this line of thinking. How many people have picked up a musical instrument, practiced for a few months, and then given up, thinking they just aren’t cut out for music? (And how many people haven’t tried in the first place for the same reason?)
I’ve adopted the belief that people are, on balance, very similar. We want the same things. We struggle with the same things. We’re good at what we’re good at largely due to circumstances (e.g., our environments growing up) and how much time we’ve spent practicing. I’ve adopted this belief partly because I think it’s true but also because, independently of that, it inspires me to think about what I’m doing (rather than “who I am”) as the cause of the results I get.
Great point Mike, and I like your latest blog post as well.
I someone’s perspective on the origin of performace is very important to changing their actions. Leena sent me this post on “Locus of Control”:
http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy5/edpsy5_attribution.htm
You make an interesting distinction of “I adopted this belief partly because … it’s true but also because … it inspires me”. I find it really interesting how beliefs are often adopted because they engender successful thought patterns and not necessarily because of a commonly agreeable truth. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do, I think it has powerful positive effects. I’m just highlighting how beliefs can be held not just based on their truth alone.
Thanks for the feedback Mike.
Darius, I really like your post as well and find it very inspiring.
Something related that I have thought about a lot myself is similar to Jordy’s thought about the world being “OK”. Most of my life, I have felt grounded and always believed that I could achieve pretty much anything if I put my mind and energy to it and also worked hard. I also never was too “down” when something did not quite work out the way I wanted to and, at times, even embraced sadness.
A while ago, a friend of mine told me that it is very obvious that I have been loved as a child. That made me think… is being loved as you grow up one of the main foundations for becoming a happy adult? Perhaps in addition to the world being “OK” we also have to feel that we ourselves are “OK” and the easiest way to get that feeling is at a very early age from our parents…
Anyways, as I am reading my comment I feel like “duh, you just stated the obvious”
Darius,
Great post and insights! There’s a really insightful book by a Stanford Professor named Carol Dweck called Mindset. She distinguishes between a ‘fixed’ mindset and a ‘growth’ mindset. With a ‘fixed’ mindset, you believe that certain of your traits/characteristics (e.g., intelligence, athleticism, salesmanship, entrepreneurial abilities, etc) are fundamentally fixed and therefore if you fail at something it’s ‘proof’ that you’re bad (‘a bad person’ as you wrote it). From a ‘fixed’ mindset, your life is spent finding things you’re inherently good at and avoiding things you’re not good at, and every new ‘contest’ (test/startup/date/sport/etc) occurs as potentially damning because it might be the one that reveals your fixed characteristics are really worse than others think. With a ‘growth’ mindset, by contrast, you believe your traits/characteristics are changeable and can be improved on. You therefore seek out new challenges as opportunities to improve, and setbacks simply occur as part of the learning process (exactly as you outlined in your second ‘thought chain’).
So… I totally agree that your ‘thought chains’ determine your experience and ability to be resilient and learn from failure, AND I think your mindset is the source of those thought patterns. For real, lasting change, shifting your mindset is key.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
Thanks for the feedback!
Stefanie, I definitely agree that a sense of OK-ness is powerful and that this often is helped by having a loving foundation. I think it’s both obvious and not so, or at least, not talked about and celebrated often enough.
I think that plays into Dave’s point too. This solid feeling of OK-ness seems to help people avoid the mindset that results in failure being seen as “I’m bad”. Somehow if you are loved early on, and feel that “I can do it and am fundamentally OK” that gives you a mindset that interprets failure as a learning rather than a judgement. It’s almost as if it makes the thought “This failure means I’m a bad person” seem ridiculous and silly. Just like everyone can agree that “The fact that it’s raining means I’m a bad person” is silly and ridiculous. But there was a time a few thousand years ago that such a believe was more widely shared (or perhaps the the fact that “it’s *not* raining” makes you a bad person)
Darius,
This is great insight to the glass being half full. A clear path for learning the tools that are necessary to succeed in what you choose to succeed in. The problem with most that attempt and fail, and then attempt and fail again fail to define the ‘Why’ that wakes them up in the middle of a deep sleep. The ‘Why’ that moves them beyond all obstacles. When one understands their ‘Why’ the how will reveal itself. Robert Fritz teaches Structural Tension which is an excellent way to achieve the outcome through visual thought. When you can create tension between your current reality or actual state, and your primary choice or desired state, all secondary choices will reveal themselves. The secondary choices are the steps that drive your current reality into your desired state, thereby loosening the tension between the actual-state and the desired-state; the cause of self inflicted stresses.
Best,
Derak