Failure is a good thing

It certainly may not seem like it at first, but failure is a good thing. That’s how you grow and learn.

What’s worse than failure, though, is mediocrity.

Failure lets you move on, mediocrity stalls you and keeps you from reaching your potential. #

I couldn’t put it better myself. If things are mediocre, you’ll may always have a feeling that things will improve but it never happens. You are stuck in a limbo. Nothing is improving and nothing is failing. You don’t know what to do so you just keep going at it.

At least with failure you have closure. It’s a good sign that it is time to move on and you can accept that. Like Dan Gilbert discusses in Stumbling Upon Happiness, when things are really bad, our brains figure out a way to look at the situation and find something good out of it. This applies to failure in anything. It’s devastating to realize, but you know this means you can go try something new and maybe focus on something you love more this time around. Most people want to improve things, so failure becomes a moment of realization which you can make a vow to yourself to try harder, do something different, become that person you wish you were.

Failure helps you realize things, but that’s not to say being mediocre isn’t bad. You can often sell a decent company for a good chunk of change. Sure that’s a completely valid argument against embracing failure, but as humans, we are terrible predictors of the future. Who is to say your next idea won’t be the one that changes the world? Wouldn’t you rather be doing something awesome? The time you’re spending on this mediocre startup or project could be much better spent elsewhere. You won’t know until something happens (failure) that causes you to make a change.

Don’t fall into fear of rejection and failure. It’s not so bad. It builds up that people will remember you for your failures but guess what? They won’t. How many failed companies do you remember? Probably not too many. The first ones you think of are probably success and then you try to remember  ones in the same space that failed. It’s not easy to do because nobody really cares about your failures. What you’re successful at is what people will remember.