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90% of my projects are failures, and the 10% which are successes would have never happened if I was too afraid to start them. The successes looked just as like
by LegibleCrimson 3y ago
90% of my projects are failures, and the 10% which are successes would have never happened if I was too afraid to start them. The successes looked just as likely to be failures as the actual failures from the outset.
I disagree that "failure is bad and should be avoided". The degree to which failure is bad and should be avoided depends entirely on the gravity of the consequences. When taking on an ambitious programming project, "failure" is just an unfinished project and a loss of time. It's clearly a different world than something like quitting your job to try to become a professional actor.
Judgement shouldn't be based on whether somebody is failing at something or how many mistakes they are making, but the comparison of the positive vs the negative consequences. When learning something new, you will always make many more mistakes.
The problem with both the pithy quotes and your response (which is, I think, largely reasonable) is that neither one actually defines any criteria for success or failure, or what is an "unreasonable" number of mistakes. It just ends up being a semantic disagreement over what they meant by "failure" and what you understand by "failure", and I think you'd probably end up largely agreeing in the end if you broke down and actually explicitly defined the meanings of the words used.
- Aurornis 3y ago> 90% of my projects are failures, and the 10% which are successes would have never happened if I was too afraid to start them. You should definitely try things that might fail. However, failure within those projects should be actively avoided. These pithy quotes that try to remove any downside from failure are misleading. In business, failure has consequences. You need to understand what's at risk and make a best effort to steer the project toward success. These over simplified quotes that try to strip all of the downsides away from failure are a cheap trick. Yeah, they convince some people to get past their fears, but they also mislead other people into thinking that there are no consequences. You need to understand the risks and consequences, not just wave them away with pithy quotes from someone's blog.
- Apocryphon 3y agoSayings are pithy to evoke a general idea, even emotion. Obviously each individual still needs to apply a risk-benefit analysis when pursuing something that could result in failure. But there are many types of failure and it's possible that those who are risk-adverse are overly afraid of the trivial kind. What you're saying is correct, but no more correct than those pithy quotes. I guess the meta-advice is to regard wisdom carefully, with nuance, and not just follow it blindly.
- LegibleCrimson 3y ago> You should definitely try things that might fail. > > However, failure within those projects should be actively avoided. I agree with that. I agree with all of what you're saying. I don't think the pithy sayings are telling people to actively fail, though. The point is to not become overly avoidant of taking on ventures because of a fear of failure. And I think the avoidance of failure is a bigger thing than you're making it out to be. Most people who I know who don't achieve their goals and dreams fail to do so because they simply never start, or they start and see how hard it is going to be and then give up. I know very few people who jump headlong into things and fail often, and they are also the people I know with the most successes in their lives. Anecdotal, but the fear of failure preventing people from attempting anything that they want to achieve is a real and very common thing.