The Art of Failure : The best Way to Deal with Failure(Part 1)

"Failure tells me that my direction is wrong and helps me find another way."

    We are afraid of failure. However, failure is not something we should fear, rather it is something we should love. Failure is like a compass that confirms we are headed in the right direction. Failure tells me that my direction is wrong and helps me find another way.  

    From my personal experience, while it may seem paradoxical, frequent failures actually made the time getting to my goal shorter. At first, the time it took to overcome failure was very long and the disappointment in myself took its toll on my work for days. However, as I got used to failure, I thought of failure itself as experiment 1, experiment 2, so on, and the time to overcome the disappointment in myself gradually became shorter. I don’t know if this is an apt comparison, but I’ve come to treat failure like testing the 10 best ways to deliciously roast meat. 

     You may think that roasting meat and failing at work are two very different things. However, in terms of accomplishing a goal, aren’t failing at roasting meat and failing at work the same thing? If you thought of failing at work as failing at roasting meat, the disappointment would not las several days. Whether it’s love or business, when you fail, don’t act like the world has ended. There is always “another opportunity.”   Once the time of failure has passed, you realize that more than being disappointed at failure itself, you are actually more regretful of not trying a more active and innovative method during the process of failing. Let’s go back to the idea of roasting meat.  

     When we roast meat, we experiment and challenge ourselves. Some say flipping only once guarantees the best taste, but there is no correct answer. Therefore, when we roast meat, we become very experimental and challenging people. We try various ways to roast the meat well, look up cooking blogs, or ask friends. We naturally go through the process of producing the best result.    

     However, we are not able to go through this process in ‘work’ which we think of as important. When work results in failure, we end it there and give up. We don’t think to try various methods or ask others for advice. The reason it ends up like this is because we are not desperate enough about the goal. Therefore, we easily give up. What is the motivation of startup entrepreneurs who stay up nights working without weekends? It is because their goal is clear, and they desperately desire to achieve it. There is not much meaning in dividing their days and they are simply regretful that there are only 24 hours in a day.

    It is difficult to have an earnest desire for the goal if it doesn’t come from personal motivation. However, it is actually through failure that one can replace this feeling of a lack of earnest desire. I have also given up on many things because of the lack of desperate desire for the goal. When I look back now, they are all things that could have brought good results had waited longer and pushed through with them. But back then, I lacked both the earnest desire and the perseverance. 

     After much thinking, the method I found was to consider the work I am doing now as an investment for what’s to come in three years. This is to think of doing the work, not for the company or anyone else, but for my own future. When I was in school, I studied hard because I considered it necessary for my future, but as an office worker, there are many times when every task seems like a weight of something that needs to be taken care of. Think – what I am doing now will change me in three years and it will enhance my value.

"In order to find the way to success, the best method is to experience a lot of failure."

   When it is harder to predict the future, I don’t know what kind of knowledge will be helpful for me in the future. So, if we think of what we are doing now as preparation and studying for the future, the way we view work changes. This is deceiving your brain for a moment, but the effect is surprising. You will know when you try. Will you continue to not give it your best knowing that what you are doing now will be helpful to your future? No. The brain will enable itself to pull out everything that it can learn. Failure is included in this process. As you build up your career, in addition to how successful you are, it is as important to know how often and how well you failed and what you learned from it. Through this learning, creativity and risk management skills develop. Although this is not visible when you have little experience, learning from failures over time can reduce your time to success. Knowing different methods of failure continually reduces the time to find a way to succeed. This is the reason why I fell in love with failure, and it is a way to somewhat replace the desperate desire for a goal.

  In order to find the way to success, the best method is to experience a lot of failure. If you only chase after success and try to avoid failure, you may be getting farther away from success. If you are pursuing success, love failure and pursue failure. Then one day, success will be in the seat next to you.