As humans, we spend a lot of time and recourses telling children, students and staff to chase after success in life. What if you were to seek opportunities to fail? Successful entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk weren’t the type to follow advice and seek success. They have failed and have learned to never shy away from that failure. Sometimes you must risk big to win big. It is like how banks never pay interest rates higher than what you could make from investing in shares. The first is safe and successful, with little return; while the latter is unpredictable and risky but can lead to great profits.

Seek Opportunities to Fail and Grow

To chase after success is to stay within your comfort zone. Seek out opportunities to be uncomfortable – situations where you might fail. In the workplace, it is easy to only surround yourself with projects where you know you will be successful. Where is the fun in that? I challenge you to take on something that you have never done before; something that scares you a little because you are doing something truly new.

Failing is not a bad thing; each failure you encounter is a lesson. It is a learning experience that will help you develop and be more successful on your next attempt. Accept this failure as an essential part of your career and personal development. The teachable moments of failure are worth striving for as they will help you learn, adapt and get closer to your destination.

Sometimes you have to take a risk to gain something more valuable

Approach failure as a lesson. Room for failure is something that exists everywhere, from selling products to learning a new skill to starting a new venture and even to telling your family and friends about your new idea. You will feel the fear but do it anyway. No one likes rejection, but a lot of the time, the result isn’t as bad as you imagine. Sometimes you have to take a risk to gain something more valuable, and that is a great lesson to learn early on. I cannot promise that all such gambles will pay off, but it will certainly develop you.

As such results, good or bad are the outcomes of a concrete action. Concrete career actions usually pay you the most; fear of results don’t. I have had my share of failures of which some of them still scare the living day light out of me. Yes, given an opportunity I would do a few things differently but would I take appropriate career risks again? Absolutely YES! Have I failure proofed myself with my experience and knowledge of business? Absolutely NOT. Like I said before businesses always fail, entrepreneurs don’t. Putting your ideas or initiatives in action is the most important thing, and persistence is always going to pay off. Happy Monday!