If you want to succeed, alway seek to fail

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Every entrepreneur must not allow the fear to stop him, he must learn to overcome it and try what he wants.Before you give up on this article after reading the headline, please think about the fact that entrepreneurs are innovators. They don’t use the conventional ways of achieving success, they are improving that “conventional” wisdom and challenging assumptions to approach a certain need or industry from an innovative and unique perspective. They know that failure is a necessity if one wants to reach success because seeking rejection means that you are learning and adapting and getting closer to your destination.

That is why you should literally seek to fail, because of those teachable moments, that will later help you.

Led by this idea, two Michigan based entrepreneurs took embracing the failure to the whole different level. Jonathan Williams and Jordan O’Neil started Failure Lab. Failure Lab is an event that encourages people to share their biggest failures with each other. All the worst failures from either their personal, professional or academic lives. Founders pointed out that purpose of this event is not just to compare the failures, it is to listen and learn from them.

For an entrepreneur, each failure should be a lesson. It is a new experience, a learning experience that will just help you grow and succeed on the next attempt, or attempt after that. As a critical element of doing business, accepting failures is essential for entrepreneurs on their paths to success. Here are some tips that will help you on this road:

 

Seek rejection constantly.

Being rejected is not a bad thing. It just means that we have tried and took action to get closer to our goal, it also gives us an opportunity to learn something and adapt. You need to change your perspective and how you see failure.

Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist that has won Nobel Prize in economics wrote in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow about many “cognitive biases” that people live with. He explained how our brain wants to reduce complexities into alternatives that are simplistic and familiar. This thinking pattern can be helpful in a daily routine, but it has an adverse impact on innovation ability. Entrepreneurs must be will to experiment.

This means that failure helps inform the thought process behind experimentation. Often the only way to know if your idea is good, you will have to try it, and if it doesn’t work, it’s just a sign that you need a new approach.

 

Think of failure as a lesson.

Ability to execute is a major component of success. For most of the actions that will be required of an entrepreneur, rejection will be a distinct possibility. Failure can occur everywhere, from selling products and learning something new to telling your family and your friends about some of your new ideas. But when you think that you are going to fail just remember the benefits that you can take from rejection:

 

You will be afraid, but inevitably move forward

Startup’s beginning stages sure are a critical time. Some studies showed that 25 percent of startups fail within the first year, and 50 percent go down within another three years. It is crucial to be persistent and persevere. Even if you don’t sell your service or product after 50 or 100 calls, you will improve your skills and therefore become better at dealing with objections.

Always do the thing you wanted, because even if you fail, most of the time outcome won’t even be as bad as you imagined, and you will quickly realize that you can always survive it. Arianna Huffington is a great example. First, 40 publishers turned down her book, then she had a gubernatorial campaign in California, and it finished with her getting less than one percent. But she did not quit, and now we have Huffington Post, one of the most-read news websites.

Entrepreneurs must not allow the fear to stop them; they must learn to overcome it and try what they want.

 

You will acquire a growth mindset.

In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck discusses a concept called “growth mindset.” This kind of mindset requires recognition that you can improve through pushing yourself beyond what is known and mastering one of the most valuable skills in business and life, adaptation.

If you consider the fact that every failure and rejection brings you closer to your goal, you can start using rejection as a tool for adaptation. Remember that failure is a part of experimentation, and you need the experimentation because it is crucial to successful innovation.

People who think of a failure just as bad thing will be stuck in one mode of thought because they are not willing to adapt. What you need to do is focus on the lessons you get from your failures, and you will learn how to adapt and not make that mistake ever again.

 

You will become more resilient.

Rejection can build mental toughness and resilience. Facing a rejection makes you feel very uncomfortable, but if you push yourself through that, you will be able to become confident through those stressful calls and pitch meetings. When all that is finished and you realize that you are still alive and not crushed by your failure, you will be much stronger when facing the next one.