Cover Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
No matter how successful you are in life, you’ll always have moments where things won’t go as well as you expected them to. In fact, I’d even argue that the more successful you are, the more “failures” you accumulate. People who do more achieve more, but as a consequence, they also “fail” more.
The other day I was reading a book about a successful NFL player turned entrepreneur who had kids who never knew their father as an “unsuccessful” person. He said something that made me think:
“My kids never knew me before all the fame. They think that everything was always easy for me.”
As a somewhat successful writer myself, some of my readers think I have it all figured out and that everything comes easy for me. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I fail. A lot. The majority of the things I experiment with end up being duds.
I’ve started 7 businesses, most of which didn’t last more than a year, and only half or less made any money. I have created about 10 different video games on my own, none of which are released. I tend to start many projects and never finish them, instead I’m pursuing the next shiny new thing.
These are macro failures, but in my daily life, I fail regularly. I have a stellar morning routine, which I manage to do frequently enough, but there are a few days every month where I accidentally (or even voluntarily sometimes) sleep in and don’t follow through on it.
I learn 3 new skills a month, but in reality, I’ve failed to practice two of the skills I wanted to learn this month so far. And like everybody else, I find “logical” reasons to procrastinate.
The Fail Journal
I use my Fail Journal to record all these things. And while it may seem like a bit of a downer, it isn’t. At least, not for me. Over the years, I’ve become more and more selfless, and I can’t achieve that without showing my true face. If ever a biography gets written about me one day, I want the bad stuff in there at least as much as the good stuff. That’s where the real lessons are learned.
I read a lot of biographies, and knowing the subject’s darkest moments is always positive to me as the reader. (1) It’s motivating to read that others you think have it all figured out also really don’t, and (2) you see that they have to work hard to figure it out. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. It’s always a good lesson nonetheless.
As a personal coach, I also owe it to my clients to show them that I’m human just like them. And humans fail. I don’t want to learn from a coach who pretends he/she knows everything because that coach would really just be guessing what’s best for me.
A good coach is a guide. And guides aren’t perfect. They’re quirky and have more experience than you. That’s all. And experience means tons of failures.
If/when I have kids someday, I want them to know that dad hasn’t always had it figured out. In fact, I want to know that I still don’t have things figured out and never will. I don’t even want to have it all figured out anyway because the experimentation is the fun part anyway. The late Steve Jobs said:
“The journey is the reward.” — Steve Jobs
A journey without obstacles is not a journey, it’s a boring fairytale. If everything is good, nothing is good. There’s no good without evil.
What to record in your Fail Journal
At its most simple, I record things that didn’t go according to plan. Here’s the format/questions I like to answer:
What is the “failure”?
Why do I call this a failure?
What did I do wrong?
What would it have meant for it to be a success?
What is the lesson I learned from this experiment?
Who can benefit from this lesson?
The point of this exercise is twofold:
It drastically increases your self-awareness; and
It is meant to be a tool to help others.
Some failures are brutal. They’re really hard to put in my journal. Things I worked really hard on and expected to succeed are the toughest to write down, but also the most valuable ones. When I record those I try to think: “No pain, no gain.”
Most people want to forget painful experiences. I know I’ve been very much like that in the past. But I found acceptance to be a better mechanism. I accept that these things happen. I can’t change the past, but I can change the future. I find that reassuring.
Conclusion
I find that having both a Win Journal and a Fail Journal is a great combination to get great self-awareness and make me realize the truth that not everything is always going perfectly.
If you want to learn lessons from the bad things that happen in your life, you have to reflect on them, and there’s no better way than with a “fail” journal. So, start this new habit and increase your self-awareness, for yourself and others.
You can do this!
Thanks for reading! :)
ps. Here’s the template I’m using (free with no signup form)
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