There are a lot of articles and videos on the topic of “failure”. They tell stories of people who have, in their words, failed multiple times, only to get back up and try again. Sometimes they succeed at what they were trying to do; other times they discovered something else useful out of all the other failures they had to work through.
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This concept of “failure” is a tough one for me to deal with because of its strong negative connotations. I don’t like the word in general, which is why I wrote on my other blog years ago that I prefer experimented instead. While motivational and sales training types try to turn the word “failure” into something that helps you become better, I find that having words like that lingering too long in one’s mind is more depressing than encouraging.
It’s not that I immediately came to the realization that “failure” was a word holding me back from trying to achieve success. I thought about posts I’ve written in the past on the subject, or at least touched upon it. Years ago I participated in something titled 34 Questions and my answer to #17, which was “What Do You Fear The Most”, was failure. I also wrote a post titled The Fine Line Between Blog Visitors Success and Failure where I was saying just how you never know when good things will happen based on something you do and how others react to it.
We all see this in our own way. For instance, an article I read had this guy talking about 5 posts that didn’t generate the publicity he expected they would, and wondered why they failed. I thought at the time that no one hits a home run with every single post they write. I’ve written posts I thought were brilliant that didn’t catch on, and I’ve written short, snappy pieces that I figured were one-offs, only to have people reading them in droves.
If I was the type who believed that I was failing because some of my posts didn’t take off as I’d hoped, I might be inclined to give up the ghost, start eating more rice krispies treats and gain a lot of weight. Instead, I look at my output after all these years and decided that, in my own mind at least, I don’t come close to failing in my mind. I’ve definitely experimented with different content and styles over the years, but failure isn’t a part of my mindset.
When you’re putting out a lot of material, you always try to do your best, and there’s a lot of good stuff out there. Let’s do a short comparison by looking at two great classical composers in history; Mozart and Beethoven.
Mozart wrote more than 600 compositions that we know of; Beethoven wrote 200. Mozart was a “staff writer”; he was employed to write music, pure and simple. When whichever benefactor he was working for at the time said music was needed for some event, he wrote it. Sure, he wrote things on his own as well, but sometimes he had to compose something quickly, sometimes in less than a week. I used to write music and songs would come to me fast, but I was on my own time; I’m not sure I’d have been able to have the kind of output Mozart had with that kind of pressure.
Beethoven was different. He was a professional composer, one who lived at a time when musicians were finally being seen as artists and not lower class workers. Because of this, Beethoven got to take his time writing, and he was known as a perfectionist. Yet, even as a perfectionist, he had his flops here and there.
His opera Fidelio flopped, even after many revisions, and it bothered him the rest of his life. Some of his sonatas connected with audiences while others threw them off. His 9th Symphony, considered one of the greatest works of all time now, had a grand opening, mainly because of the respect he garnered, then received critical responses with every other performance until the 1900’s.
Did either Mozart of Beethoven fail? These days most of what both composers wrote are seen as major triumphs, especially Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, considering that he was deaf when he composed it. For both artists, the longer they composed, the better their music got even if their audiences weren’t ready for it. Sometimes these are lessons for the rest of us to learn. If we produce content consistently, and we keep trying to grow our blogging proficiency, can anything we do really be considered as failure even if it doesn’t all resonate with the masses?
This is why I’ve always said that we have to realize that we need to think of ourselves as much as our audience when we write. I’ve read those who write about making money that we need to write for the customer, write to their level so that they understand and will buy your product. I believe that unless you’re hired to do something specific, or you’re promoting a product you’re trying to sell, you have to like what you do in order to give your writing personality.
If you do that, you can never say you’ve failed at anything. Maybe it didn’t do as well you’d hoped, but failed… never! Remember, you can always repurpose an article if you believe in it; what’s old can be made new again. 🙂
You never fail; you’re a scientist in your own right. You and I are experimenting, hoping we can find better success. Who’s got a problem with that?
I agree with you that failures should be replaced with experiments. I had never thought of that and I thank you for that insight.
What I call failures in my life are restricted entirely to failed relationships of which I have a few. I would call the rest as experiences from which I learnt and moved on. In relationships though one does move on the pain lingers on longer.
Hey Ramana, thanks for stopping by. Relationship issues definitely feel like failures, but sometimes they’re faultless so I’m not counting them. As for experiment, I like the connotation, especially being self employed because it helps me keep pushing forward when things are slow. It especially applies to my trying to take care of my mother as her memory worsens.
We must learn to accept Failures, Failing, again and again, is a signal of a better thing is coming, every failure in my life teaching me a lot and i am using those lessons to achieve something better in my life.
Thank you Admin for this great article.
I hope you noticed in the article that I don’t use the word “failure”, concentrating instead of calling it experimentation or experimenting. It’s a much safer word that hopefully keeps more people pushing forward in their endeavors.
agree with you that failures should be replaced with experiments. I had never thought of that and I thank you for that insight.
Thanks so much for information very nice best thanks so much
If you are a blogger you have to write for yourself or you’ll eventually burn out and become so bored you’ll quit.
Or so I have always believed.
But even if we are getting paid I think we need to find something that interests us in the topic, it helps give it something extra.
I don’t think of failure as producing content that isn’t read, I think of failing to produce content as failure.
Since we never know what is going to hit or what is going to inspire us to hit that next level we have to keep going.
That is my two cents.
Good way of thinking Josh. I hope I never stop writing, but I probably need to do some consolidating so I’m not trying to strike fires in so many different places that I’m unsuccessful across the board. Still, I call it experimenting because I’m always trying new things to fascinate myself and hopefully intrigue others.
nice written. very good information to learn. I hope I never stop writing, but I probably need to do some consolidating so I’m not trying to strike fires in so many different places that I’m unsuccessful across the board. Very useful thank you so much.
As someone who’s had multiple blogs over the years and still has 5 (at least today), I know one can stretch themselves out too much and make it harder to be successful.
Hello Ramana,
Your article is a breath of fresh air. I feel like people will even avoid trying, due to failure. The failure itself does suck, but they also get concerned with how people will judge them (as a failure). Because of this people won’t even try. Yet, as we get older we learn that failure is one of the greatest teachers. I’m very much involved in the fitness industry, and people quit way too soon. As a society, we expect results immediately, and that’s just not the way life goes. Thanks for the read.
Hi Mitch,
great article! You’re right, experiment sounds way more accurate than failure. In my country failure is often stigmatized and people often don’t see that most entrepreneurs fail a few times before say achieve success. Failure is an important part of life. It makes you grow as a person, at least if you are willing to learn from them.
Anyway, great website. I bookmarked it.
Great seeing you here Kim. Thing is, most of the time when people don’t succeed, it’s only them & their close friends who know about it. If one’s close friends aren’t supportive, they were never friends to begin with. I’ve been up and down with my business; the same goes for marketing. You learn early that what you did last year that worked doesn’t work this year and vice versa. It’s always an experiment, and things don’t always go right; that’s why I like calling it experimentation instead. 🙂
Hi Mitch,
Thank you for the post. Some interesting points in there.
One persons failures might not be another persons. The end line is that we should learn through failure to succeed!
Thanks.
Also, calling it experimentation might help one’s perspective, since that’s what Edison called it and it worked out well for him. 😉
For me, “failure” only means that “I haven’t given my best to something yet”. The fact is, failure brings perfection in humans. Go with the flow, keep giving your best efforts, success will be yours.
Thank You Mitch For This Blog Post!!
Well… not quite. 🙂 Nothing brings perfection in humans; trust me, I used to aim for perfection and even when I was very good at something I knew I was never going to reach perception… though reluctantly. That’s why I prefer “experimentation” to failure, because experimenting with different things keeps people motivated and helps one to learn from both mistakes and small things that help us move forward. You may have given you best and it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, but every step forward means another change to continue moving in that direction. Don’t pressure yourself; learn and grow instead.
Failure can be taken as a gift if you are determined to try again. Failure does bring a feeling of disappointment to one but it should be taken in a positive way. No one can be certain of not being a failure.
As failure I view another opportunity for doing right thing what I previously did wrong.
It’s an interesting way to look at it; try and try again encouragement. That’s not a bad way to see things.
I always see myself as a failure. Failure in my career since I don’t have a stable job..working as a freelancer but don’t have any projects for now. Anyway, thank you for sharing this!
I’m not sure how to encourage you to visualize things differently. In the article I mentioned seeing these things as experiments instead of failures, so you can learn from them and find ways to improve yourself and your business. In your case, it sounds like you need to figure out your marketing better and be more aggressive at it while not irking a lot of people. Writing more blog articles and marketing them might help you gain some traction. I wish you well.
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Garbage in more ways than one. However, it’s also the first entry using aol; I can’t remember the last time someone used an aol email address…