“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett clearly knew a thing or two about confidence when he said, “Fail again. Fail better.” You see, failure is generally viewed as a negative happening that knocks your confidence, but it can in fact be a positive confidence builder.
If you never try, you can never succeed.
Have you ever put off doing something because you were waiting for all your ducks to be in a row? If so, you’ll have been thinking about doing something, but you’ll always have found some “reason” for not doing it. Maybe the time wasn’t right, or maybe a few things weren’t quite in place, but if you’re totally honest with yourself, could it be that you were holding back from just getting on and doing it because you were afraid you might fail?
Let’s just think about that for a moment: you were afraid you might fail so you didn’t do it. What did you gain? Nothing. Now, what if you’d had the confidence to just go ahead and try? Maybe you wouldn’t have failed, but you’re not going to know, right? Maybe you would have failed, but would you still have gained nothing? No. You would have gained a lot. You would have gained an understanding of what you need to do differently to succeed next time – or, fail better next time.
Confidence is believing you will get there when you fall.
Having the confidence to fail is all about adopting a growth mindset. When you do, you learn to judge yourself on what you’ve learned rather than your performance. Having the confidence to try gains you the experience and knowledge you need to try again, should things not go to plan first time around, and each time you try again, you gain more experience and knowledge – you gain with every “failure” and you gain the confidence you need to believe you will get there in the end.
Let’s not forget the famous example of Thomas Edison who said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10 000 ways that won’t work.” Now that’s a lesson in failing again and failing better we can all learn from.
Contact donald@zonedinperformance.com to find out about the courses and programmes that could help you most.