Failure is so shitty and tough. I fail a lot. I can speak from a very personal place on this topic.
- Did you try?
- Did you take a risk?
- Was it stupid?
- Did you make a huge mistake?
- Are you embarrassed?
- Did you waste time?
- Did your feelings get hurt?
- Was it a waste of money?
As long as you didn’t hurt anybody and no one died, you can overcome your failure.
(Those are two big variables, by the way. Try not to hurt anybody.)
Next time, do two things differently: try to predict your failure by conducting a pre-mortem™, and try to fail faster. What I’m telling you is both simple and hard. I’m telling you to have courage in the face of failure. Don’t be afraid to call bullshit on bad ideas, and don’t be afraid to stop wasting time on a good idea gone bad.
And, after the sting of failure has subsided: what did I learn? If I can genuinely answer that question, then it wasn’t a total loss.
Failure is never is or fun. It is hard to see that things do not end up as expected. However, this is not something that should stop us follow our dreams. By the way, great variables!