Embrace the Wisdom in Failure: Craft a How-To-Fail List for Personal Growth
You try your best to avoid mistakes when you are passionate about something. You put your heart on the line and take everything too seriously. And every failure or setback seems like the end of the world.But something will always go wrong. It doesn’t matter how perfect and careful you try to become.
The Fixed/Growth Mindset
Most people act as if they could never make mistakes. They see failures as the ending of their careers and dreams. So, the first time they crumble, they get burned.You may survive a failure or two if you have a fixed mindset. But, eventually, you will give up. And you will likely never turn back to your passions because they disappointed you once.
But what if we try to shift this paradigm? What if we start to use the mistakes we made?
If we shift our mindset from fixed to growth, we could achieve two results:
- Avoid repeating the same stupid mistake.
- Learn from the flaws that make us weak.
Preventing Is The First Step
Awareness is the first step towards improvement.Yes, I know — it’s obvious. But, sometimes, the most obvious thing is the hardest to cope with.
So, to avoid deep falls, you better be aware that anything could go wrong. Sometimes, even terribly so. And you have to be ready. Find a way to predict what could go sideways. Or, at least, prepare for the worst.
Down the road, you will know if it was worth the investment. If nothing happens, good for you. But if it does, it won’t destroy your morale that much. So, this is the reason why you should write a how-to-fail list.
What is a How-to-Fail List?
Okay, good. Everybody should write at least one how-to-fail list. I will assume I convinced you. But what is that?That’s pretty simple.
But not only that. It must contain the precise steps that would bring you to failure and the mistakes that would worsen the situation.
In the beginning, as you have never experienced any failure, your list will be raw and incomplete. But don’t worry! You have time to improve it the first time you face a setback. And, as you get to know your flaws better, you could enrich each step with a cause, probability, and even remedy.
Your how-to-fail list will become a warning for your flaws and the solution to escape them. So, let’s see how to build one to avoid and learn from your mistakes.
How to Make a How-to-Fail List
A How-to-Fail list is a sequence of steps that describes how your project could fail. And you can build it in four simple steps.1 — Make a list.
First, imagine the progressive steps that would bring you from the simplest mistake to the biggest disaster.If you already know your flaws, it will be easy to find a starting point. But if you don’t, start with the basics: lack of motivation, procrastination, poor goal setting, etc.
Each step could split into multiple consequences. However, reduce complexity and focus on one mistake at a time.
2 — Assess the probability.
The first steps of your lists will always have a high probability because they are your most common flaws. But you should also be aware that worse things could happen.I won’t make a How-to-Fail list for events with a 1% probability. But if you want to, I won’t stop you.
3 — Find the causes.
Then, find the exact cause that would make a stupid flaw become something more serious.These will be your attention points in the future. And they will help you avoid those mistakes and failures.
4 — Search for the remedies.
And then, you must find a remedy for each step that could help you climb back to the initial state when everything worked fine.Search for a remedy will be almost impossible if you have never made a mistake. So I suggest you read other people’s stories to find possible solutions. And then, if it will ever happen, you may find your answers.
The Benefits of How-to-Fail Lists
I’ve already spoiled some of the benefits of How-to-Fail lists. But here’s a short list in case you are not convinced yet.- When you create the list, you force yourself to think about all the possible consequences of your actions. So, building awareness is one of the fundamental benefits.
- Also, if you are aware of mistakes, you can prevent them from happening. So, you would build a system that helps you stay on track.
- But you can also learn from mistakes. This system pushes you to improve because it makes you think about a remedy for each problem in advance. So, you will already do a lot of problem-solving.
The Challenge of The Week
Pick one of the projects you care about the most and build a few how-to-fail lists for it. Start with a specific flow you have. And then try to make it worse and worse. Write the probability for each step, its cause, and a possible remedy.A Cosmopolitan MINDSET’S Newsletter
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Original Publication: How to Make a How-To-Fail List To Benefit From Stupid Mistakes