Double your failure rate

The New Year brings with it a renewed dedication to tackle vices and a resolve to achieve lofty goals. However, after several years of attempted resolutions and subsequent failures to achieve them, some individuals become jaded to the idea of setting new goals for the year. The reason people do not take risks is because—consciously or unconsciously—they are afraid of failing.

We hold our four-month-old daughter up so she can stand on her little feet even though there is no possibility for her to stand without support. In a few months she will be crawling, then pulling herself up to try to stand. There will be many times when she will fall on her padded diaper.

It would be ridiculous for us to tell her after three or four attempts that she is not doing a good job standing and to simply stop trying. Yet, many people will make their New Year’s resolutions and give it their full effort for a couple of weeks. After one or two months, they will have tried and failed to get the results they desire and will simply give up. A young man once asked Thomas A. Watson Sr., founder of IBM, “How can I be more successful, faster?” Watson replied, “That is very simple. You must double your rate of failure!”

To believe that you can succeed without experiencing some setbacks means you are not setting your goals high enough. Anyone who has achieved a great goal has also experienced great obstacles that threatened the accomplishment of the goal. People who fear failure become paralyzed to take the risks required to move forward. Those who succeed remain focused on their goal and are flexible enough to rebound when they experience a setback. They are solution-oriented and try to learn a lesson from their failure that will help them avoid a similar mistake in the future.

Unless you are perfectly satisfied with your current situation, and you believe your circumstances will not change due to internal or external forces, then goal setting may be a frivolous exercise. Goals are essential for those who want to improve their situation, or at least realize that things will vary and unless they make changes their current status will also be different. This applies for both personal and professional goals.

A personal goal that is at the top of a lot of people’s list is to lose weight next year. Yet, after dozens of attempts and failures, it is difficult to muster the excitement to try again. After our fourth child, Janel tried numerous plans and diets to lose some unwanted pounds. Nothing brought a permanent solution, and after several years of her weight yo-yoing up and down she was becoming frustrated. It wasn’t until we moved to Saipan that a friend lent Janel a book that provided the solution she needed. Six months later she lost 50 pounds and experienced greater vitality. The friend, who had failed in her initial attempt to follow the program in the book, now had greater confidence to stick with the plan and she also reached her ideal weight.

Rather than quit, Janel discovered a new strategy and eventually succeeded in her goal. In business, it may take many attempts and new strategies to succeed. It is reported that Thomas Edison made 10,000 experiments to invent the incandescent light bulb that is still used over 100 years after its invention. He was asked what caused him to keep trying after thousands of failed attempts, and he retorted that he merely discovered 9,999 ways not to invent a light bulb.

Flexibility is critical to achieve any worthwhile purpose. No matter how careful your planning, you will run into unexpected obstacles that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to continue in that direction. However, if you persevere, another door will open for you to achieve your goal. You should be absolutely clear about your goal, but flexible about the process needed to achieve it. Take action on new opportunities as quickly as possible, and you may be surprised that you have reached your goal in the most surprising and unexpected ways.

If you are not realizing the success you planned on, then you may need to just double your failure rate. You need to remember that failure is an event in which you did not achieve your immediate desired result. It does not describe the final outcome and it is not a person–it does not describe you, if you keep trying. Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, once said: “We fail forward to success.”

(Rik is a business instructor at NMC and Janel is the owner of Positively Outrageous Results. They have consulted with over 400 businesses in 40 different industries, and can be contacted at: biz_results@yahoo.com)