The desire to be successful is what keeps entrepreneurs going. Whether it’s because we need money to keep paying off that mortgage or simply because we want to know that our passion is making a difference in the world (likely, it’s both), an online business that succeeds is important. For most entrepreneurs though, success is a word that has nothing to do with setbacks, loss or failure of any kind.
But perhaps it should be. Maybe, just maybe, failure can propel our business forward.
Scott Adams, creator of the popular comic strip, “Dilbert” says “Everything you want out of life is in that bubbling vat of failure. The trick is to get the good stuff out.” In his book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (aff link), Adams outlines how he took a series of failures and ultimately became wildly successful.
Now I’m not saying we should do a celebration dance for numbers that have been in the red for ages or hope for angry customers to show up on our doorstep demanding we fix our web sites error pages once and for all. What I’m referring to is the same thing that Nigel Barger, Ph.D., discusses in a 2013 issue of Psychology Today. He explains that today’s world is a “competitive society that has big winners and big losers” and despite all the motivational speakers and mentors, most do not teach us perhaps the most significant idea of all which is coping with failure.
In a nutshell, he explains that those near-perfect people who have not had the benefit of failures in their life are untested. Therein is the problem for entrepreneurs who put on their perfectionist hats every day, ready to pack it in and take up a new career at the slightest setback. “An untested employee is like an untried soldier,” Dr. Barger says, “liable to break down under fire from real-world difficulties and challenges.”
Failures, then, can help us learn and improve our online business. That is, once we know that it’s all right to stumble, we need not become a defeated, dark cloud or worse, find ourselves at a standstill because our “I do no wrong” attitude has been shattered.
The Top 3 Advantages of Failing
1. You Learn and Move Forward
Learning from a setback (or two, or three) can give us insight as to where we went wrong. If we accept our mistakes and learn new ways to prevent them from recurring, we’re that much closer to succeeding. “Failure is final if you refuse to get up, dust yourself off and get back in the game,” explains entrepreneur and Forbes magazine contributor Michael Lindenmayer. “The key is to build on the lessons learned and forge ahead.
Look at Thomas Edison. After thousands of failed filaments, he ultimately succeeded. Several greats in the world have faced setbacks, but they also became world-renowned experts . . . why not you?
2. You Become Extraordinarily Passionate and Develop New Ideas
There’s a phrase out there along the lines of “if you want me to do something, tell me I can’t.” In other words, failures can ignite your entrepreneurial desires so much so that you adopt a “watch out world, here I come” attitude rather than one where you feel like pulling the covers over your head. As a result, you’ll become even more determined than the time before to try new methods and do your best to make it work. “With success, people keep on doing the same thing,” says Dr. Barger. “When they fail, they are forced to adapt and change.
3. You’re Able to Focus Like Never Before
All over the place trying to find your niche? Or found it but haven’t been successful getting the word out? Perhaps, like many people, the often alluring distractions of social media get in the way of our ability to focus. Let’s admit it, sometimes it’s just nice to “escape” with some silly Facebook posts and see what our friends are up to. Or, we get caught up in an aspect of our business that is actually more minor than we think. Before you know it, your online business suffers at this lack of focus.
“Crisis creates clarity,” explains Lindenmayer. “Failures force us to clear out the noise and zero in on what is most important.” When you encounter problems with your online business that warrant serious attention, that becomes the number one priority.
Excessive texts, selecting a different e-newsletter font for hours or watching funny YouTube videos? They’re on the back burner as you get back on your feet.
And you will. I did, and always do.
Sources for this article include:
