Why The “Fail Fast, Fail Often” Mantra Is Often A Recipe For Failure

Fail fast and often is a phrase that has grown in legend in the last decade. It originated in the startup world, and has taken on a life of its own. To fail fast and often means that the faster you fail the faster you’ll reach success. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work this way.

Why?

Because failure isn’t useful if you don’t learn from mistakes. When we fail, we attribute it to factors outside of our control. Rarely do we look in the mirror and hold ourselves accountable for our failings. As a result we don’t change course.

Basically, you’re making a mistake if you take on projects and hope for the best. Saying, “it didn’t work, but hopefully it’ll work next time” is stupid. Remember, hoping for the best is not a strategy.

To actually reflect on your failures, ask yourself:

  • What happened?
  • What drove this?
  • Why didn’t it work?
  • What did I learn?
  • What could I have done differently to avoid this outcome?

You’re no more wiser if you don’t learn from mistakes than when you started. So what you should aim for is to learn fast; call it smart failing. Where you end up wiser from your mistakes because you reflected on them. Yes, try stuff. But anticipate that mistakes will be made and learn from them.

Waiting has never been something that comes easy to people in general. Imagine yourself spending a good amount of your day waiting for your car to be serviced. How boring can this be for you? Play games have always been the ultimate solution to wasting time. Get yourself set before your appointment and download some games on your phone that are enjoyable and time-consuming. You are trying to start maintaining your property, the best thing you can do is acquire the tools you need, for example, the best push mower under 300 dollars to make your job easier.


Bottom line: Failure can be the best teacher when you approach it properly.