I fail rather a lot. More often, I suspect, than you do. If there’s anything I could be said to excel at, it’s failure.
Now, I don’t say that in a self-deprecating way. To me, that’s a positive thing. Because I start an awful lot of things. I would explode if all of them went well. Mostly I like to draw people’s attention to the successes, but generally, I don’t mind if they know about the misfires.
Now, I guess I could be accused of not having the stickability to see things through to the bitter end in the face of adversity – but my philosophy in these matters is both ‘why make things hard for yourself?’ and ‘why should I not get to do the interesting, exciting and potentially successful thing just because the thing I’m working on has turned into a no-reward slog?’.
I’d rather be considered lazy and interesting, than a dull workhorse bashing away at the same unsuccessful project because of some misplaced sense of duty. You don’t have to finish everything you start – and I’d argue you should start far more things than you possibly have a hope of ever finishing.
Some things I start seem like really good ideas at the time. There was the 100 Questions project – of which I got about 50 through, then realised they were better as blog posts than as part of a massive tome. Especially in the light of the sheer volume of comments a lot of those posts elicited.
Then there’s the Wiki book that I offered to set up, contribute to, and invite submissions to. Great idea, right? I mean, the sheer scope of experience and expertise amongst the thousands of NMS readers in the world is completely staggering. How can I, as one commentator, hope to contribute anything that would compete with that body of knowledge?
And yet – it appears that’s not what NMS readers want. I’ve had emails from people saying they’d prefer to just hear what I think in this context – and comments from others demanding I sort out the ownership issues before they’ll reveal any of their knowledge. Fair enough. I can stop doing it far more easily than I can start.
So I’m sort of pulling the plug on the Wiki book, just as I pulled the plug on the 100 Questions project – with no sentimentality and no hesitation. I do the same elsewhere too. I have started at least a dozen new websites in the past 18 months – a couple of which are looking promising and successful. The others I’m happy to let lie.
They may kick off again – they may not. I’m not particularly attached to it either way. My only question is – what shall I try next?
And I guess the lesson to draw here, if there is one, is that you don’t have to stay the course. There are so many tools, techniques and services to try – and really no way to know for sure which are the correct ones for you to use and rely upon. But likewise – fortunately, there’s no real downside with a lot of internet strategies to trying something and walking away from it if it’s not working for you.
If it’s free, simple or worth a shot – start it. If it works for you – great. If it doesn’t, do something else. And that might change from day to day, or it might snowball and turn into something really positive and powerful.
Trying and failing is a far more productive strategy than not trying something in case it doesn’t work. In fact, if you want to be successful – fail early and fail often.
So if you had high hopes for something in particular that I was working on and I seem to have abandoned it in favour of something shiny and new, feel free to pick it up and run with it. If you can make a success of something I’ve botched – be my guest. Get in touch and let me know.
But don’t be afraid to go and make as many of your own mistakes as you can. It’s really the only way to succeed.
Incidentally, you can buy those fabulous FAIL stickers pictured above. I think they’re pretty cool.
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9 Comments
In the seventies there was a t-shirt with an Osho quote, it said:
“Why be a hero when you can be a zero?”
Speaking of failure, my band just had their demo EP reviewed by a local publication, and the entire review was as follows:
“Playing your instruments at mismatched tempos doesn’t make your music more psychedelic – it just makes it bad.”
I’m feeling pretty good about using that negativity as motivation. Anybody got a similar story, i.e., criticism as “failure?” And fuel?
“If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.” – Thomas J. Watson
Re: Wikis -
I’ve been involved with wikis for a half dozen years. They certainly aren’t always the best publishing platform for every project, and they usually need extreme individual evangelism to get them to the point where other people will want to contribute. Just installing a copy of MediaWiki and saying, “have at it”, probably IS a recipe for failure unless you’re the front man for Nine Inch Nails or something… ;) Spambots are also a major problem on public wikis. Wikipedia gets around it with 20,000 volunteers patrolling the site.
The ownership issues I brought u[ were really just based on personal experience. It will come up eventually. It did (and does) on Wikipedia. I’ve written articles on Wikipedia that individually get over 80,000 views per month, but I know when I publish on there it’s under GNU, so I know it’s generally being given away for free “for the common good”. Conversely, I’ve seen people post over 10,000 posts on Web forums never knowing (I would assume) that all the content is copyright the forum’s owner.
I think you actually learn more from the failures, than from a success.
And some part of a failed experience may actually be useful at some distant time.
My two cents worth.
As I set out to start a new WordPress blog, abandoning my Blogspot one, I appreciate your article on failure. Not that I feel my blogspot blog was a failure per se, just a learning experience for greater success w/WordPress.
Onward! :-)
Yes, very familiar with the failure route! I recently submitted four tunes to a music supervisor I work for (per his request – and per his direction regarding the ‘style’) and out of the four; One was considered “Brilliant” and he proceeded to thoroughly bash the other three! The exact words used were: “They meander too much! Get that cookie cutter out and make them more simple and direct!”
A crushing blow in some ways – but in the several years we have been working together, it is that kind of brutal honesty that I appreciate and keeps me working with him. It is motivating – once I get past the initial emotionally self-imposed let down.
Self Discipline: The ability to take action regardless of your emotional state.
If you need to fail a thousand times to succeed once….. hadn’t you better start failing?
some one I have mixed feelings about once said that to me… that sums it up though!
being extremely familiar with failure myself as well as a high-intensity scattershot approach to career and lifestyle I’m probably no one to speak – but I think an article like this might be best balanced by an explanation that your failures all center around a relatively narrow band of activity – namely, web stuff. Your failures all carry lessons forward because the thing you move onto is highly related to previous works. It may not look like a classic disciplined approach to you or others but, alas, I’m afraid it is.
The boring, un-sexy fact is: discipline works. Becoming accomplished in a field takes repetition as well as failure, something they are the same thing.
I only say this so that folks don’t take a post like this out of context and assume there are short cuts somewhere (other than, you know, luck)
The road to success is littered with failure.. Do I have that right?