Skip to content

Why failure is often better than "it's not ready yet."

David Sherry
2 min read
Why failure is often better than "it's not ready yet."

I used to be worried about failing... and but now I'm worried about not failing enough.

When your biggest fear is how you're received by the market, it's easy to delay making any real progress.

When something becomes important to you, like a new project, idea, or hobby, it's easy to fear sharing that with others, for fear that the thing you care most about gets shot down.

So, it's easier to hide or keep working on things in the shadows.

But failure is often what success looks like at this stage, and that's counter-intuitive.

When we think something isn't ready yet or we're too worried about being open and sharing, we go back into the lab and keep thinking about it.

The more we think about it, the less contact we make with our potential audience.

Because we're cut off from our audience, network, or community, we are totally cut off from half of the equation of any meaningful work: how our work connects with another person in the world.

So, failure in public is better than failure in your own mind, because when you fail in public, you at least make contact with the audience.

That "failure" provides you with valuable feedback. Without that feedback, we're stuck testing it in our own heads, rather than testing with others.

Failure of this kind means you're succeeding at the process of becoming whatever it is you're aiming for. You're on the journey, not still stuck at the starting line.

And a big part of that success means testing in public what doesn't work so that you can get on track for what does.

Ultimately, failure can simply be a frame – in this case, I'm simply framing failure to be "Success at making contact with an audience with my idea, regardless of results."

So, be careful what you are labeling in your mind as a "failure" as when you do that, it's sure to be.

What can you publish, share, or put out today that will make contact with an audience, and leave the comforts of your own mind?

Where can you "fail" just a bit more, and re-label it as a successful step forward?

As always, let me know how I can help,

xx David

Creative Lessons