You know what I wish for you? To understand that success isn’t the end and failure isn’t final. In short: I want you to discover what it’s like to live life like a scientist

Why?

I want you to experience what it’s like to live as if you cannot fail.

What does life look like when success isn’t the end and failure isn’t final?

I’ll let Thomas Alva Edison explain this concept to you:

“I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. I recall that after we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure, expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed ‘to find out anything.’ I cheerily assured him that we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn’t be done that way, and that we would have to try some other way. We sometimes learn a lot from our failures if we have put into the effort the best thought and work we are capable of.”

The liberating power of embracing ‘failure’

Too often we want to forget our “failures,” or pretend they didn’t happen.

But that doesn’t work. Why?

If you don’t know why something doesn’t work, you can’t avoid making the same mistakes.

Failure isn’t final if you think like a scientist

The secret to shedding the shame and embarrassment you might feel around so-called ‘failures’ is to use the scientific method of examining data. Scientists have a hypotheses and run an experiment to prove their theory. They know that it’s rare to succeed the first time. So instead of scrapping everything, they pinpoint what went wrong, without judgement or shame, make an adjustment and try again. 

Creative challenge: Looking for the opportunity to learn

Let’s apply this technique to a real-life situation.

1. Take something in your life you’re sensitive about. Something you think you’ve failed at: relationships, staying sober, raising kids, being “successful…”
2. Now think about one specific situation that still pains you. You may not know how you could have “fixed” it. But that’s not the point.
3. The point is to ask yourself: What do you know did NOT work? What did you learn NOT to do?

Remember: if you learned something, it wasn’t a failure. 

Don’t stress about things when they don’t go your way. 

Instead: tweak, iterate, observe, analyze, and then do it again — without the things you know don’t work.

Do this, and eventually you’ll discover what does work. 

And you’ll have a lot more fun figuring it all out.

That is why these so-called “failed experiments” are more valuable to you than immediately discovering how to do it “right” the first time. 

Learning what not to do makes you wiser.

Don’t believe me? Then trust Edison:

“The student will find that experience is the best teacher. The reason why I get along with comparative ease now is because I know from experience the enormous number of things that won’t work. For instance, I start on a new invention to-morrow. From the great number of experiments I have made, and the vast amount of information I have stored up, I am saved a great deal of time and trouble in not having to travel over barren ground.”

Save yourself time and trouble. Treasure that knowledge of what isn’t right, and don’t give up! Keep tinkering until you discover what works for you.

That’s your challenge.