Expect to Fail in Order to Suceed

[black_mamba]

I think sometimes it's really easy to fall into the trap of expecting too much of yourself. Say you're trying to do a CBT exercise and it feels forced, difficult, so you eventually not only give up but also beat yourself up about not picking it up quickly enough. Bit of a vicious cycle mechanism.

It links to something I've been thinking about recently about just how much effort is required to challenge and change ourselves and our thought patterns and behaviours. It's a huge, huge challenge and we should try to place realistic, simple expectations on ourselves otherwise risk making ourselves feel even worse.

An easier way to think about this is simply to expect to fail. Expect to fail many times before you learn how to do things the best way (and eventually you will improve). Failure in itself is not inherently a problem, by the way (obviously there are exceptions). Failure simply means you tried. Worse than failure is not trying at all.

In fact failing faster and faster is even better!

Some more advice here:

Seven questions for when you are failing.

Why most people give up.


Hope someone gets some use out of this!

[Appear]

Cheers for this black_mamba, seems really useful! Not having the best of days, so this is probably just what I need.

[Nova1984]

You have to learn from your mistakes, if you make no mistakes then how can you learn? So long as you take the positives and use it as a learning experience, s'all good.

[black_mamba]

^Yup, I just think some assume that even ONE single failure means they've failed in general. Not true.

In the words of some random person on the Interwebs:

[buttonlane]

Growth is painful and we all have a natural tendancy to move away from pain and towards pleasure. Add to that the minds dislike of change plus the unknown, its no wonder most people stuggle to change. Ive found recently, (through going to the gym) that once you start seeing gains the pain becomes worth it and you start to associate positive feelings towards the things once avoided, gaining momentum. You become almost like an unstoppable force in some instances. Ive always hated exercise in particular the gym and swimming. Ive seen massive improvements in both activities and now absolutly love it, its become part of who I am.

My SA is a bit different but without the many failures followed by small breakthroughs ive had I would have given up a long time ago.

I could easily have been diagnosed with avoidance personality, but thats just a label and a convenient excuse. I needed to grow up and stop running away like a little child.

I subscribe to the idea that failure is good, life would be so boring if everything was handed to us on a plate.

[Nova1984]

Originally Posted by black_mamba

^Yup, I just think some assume that even ONE single failure means they've failed in general. Not true.

I agree with that sadly, it's all just a learning experience. God i have made some massive mistakes in my life and while at the time it hit me hard i was able to look back and learn from it.

While i still have issues i would say I'm far wiser then i was when i was 17, just purely down to the mistakes i have made.

[Progress]

Originally Posted by black_mamba

^Yup, I just think some assume that even ONE single failure means they've failed in general. Not true.

Very true Being not true is very true I mean. I don't mean it's not not true. Glad I made that clear

Originally Posted by buttonlane

Growth is painful and we all have a natural tendancy to move away from pain and towards pleasure. Add to that the minds dislike of change plus the unknown, its no wonder most people stuggle to change. Ive found recently, (through going to the gym) that once you start seeing gains the pain becomes worth it and you start to associate positive feelings towards the things once avoided, gaining momentum. You become almost like an unstoppable force in some instances. Ive always hated exercise in particular the gym and swimming. Ive seen massive improvements in both activities and now absolutly love it, its become part of who I am.

My SA is a bit different but without the many failures followed by small breakthroughs ive had I would have given up a long time ago.

I could easily have been diagnosed with avoidance personality, but thats just a label and a convenient excuse. I needed to grow up and stop running away like a little child.

I subscribe to the idea that failure is good, life would be so boring if everything was handed to us on a plate.

Wise words

It's a big problem of mine, to feel humiliated and be crushed by 'failure'. Must learn to see it differently.
Thanks for the thread bm.

[black_mamba]

I've failed embarrassingly recently in many ways, but have learnt to cope with it better.

I recently embarked on starting a business only to realise I hated it once I tried it. Stupidly - and here's the big misteak - I invested thousands of pounds of my own money into it before even trying it properly. I feel stupid but I'll never make that misteak again.

I've had so many "failed" careers you wouldn't believe.

I've been trying to take up painting again (with the aim of selling my work online soon) and I've failed miserably. Depending on your view point, I've either wasted hundreds of pounds of materials or just been an incredibly steep learning curve.

And then there are the misteaks so bad I wouldn't tell anyone. Having relationships with people I should've steered clear of. Wasting money. Putting myself into danger.

After all of that I still refuse to call myself an idiot because that's simply not a nice way of treating myself. Yes some decisions were idiotic but I am not defined by just misteaks.

It's a big problem of mine, to feel humiliated and be crushed by 'failure'. Must learn to see it differently.

I think if you didn't feel anything after a big misteak then you wouldn't be human. Either that or a psychopath with no care in the world. Caring about wrong doings or bad decisions is a sign you're on the right track. Now if only I could put into words exactly how we can start moving away from this frame of mind and onto one where misteaks are welcome and expected, embraced, used as learning exercises and then moved on from!

[black_mamba]

Originally Posted by biscuits

You need to accept that it's probably going to feel awkward, difficult, uncomfortable at first. But the fact is that you are doing it and it may take 20 times before it feels completely comfortable and every time you do it again it's going to feel that little bit easier. It may not even feel easier after 3 attempts, but it will feel easier eventually.

Yes exactly and the time it takes to get comfortable with something will vary from person to person. I keep going on about my ten years, ten years to get confident and feel happy in myself, ten years to get over my social fears. If you'd have told me it would've taken this long I'd have been shocked - I expected a miracle cure to help in a matter of months.

Many many years of failing, mistakes and discomfort before things changed dramatically for me.

Be patient and determined and don't obsess over failures. Failures are not the opposite of success, the opposite of success is not trying.

[black_mamba]

^Yes it was a deliberate misteak. :P

[iTz0kt0Bu]

Originally Posted by Tabitha

No. I would never expect to fail to in order to suceed. That is almost telling yourself you will fail and it is being being negative.
Tell yourself you will not fail, but if you do, then you can say you tried your best.
Failure is not an option. If you are determined to do something, take risks and keep trying
(Not sure who's quote the above is but I like it)

Failure are more like mistakes I guess and mistakes are learning curves if you look at them from a rational view.

[Zardo]

Expect to fail in order to succeed only really works if you haven't had endless failure in your life already. If you're in a better position to actually succeed in reality and your life isn't really that bad then fine, to say this kind of advice otherwise is condescending!

[iTz0kt0Bu]

Originally Posted by Zardo

Expect to fail in order to succeed only really works if you haven't had endless failure in your life already. If you're in a better position to actually succeed in reality and your life isn't really that bad then fine, to say this kind of advice otherwise in condescending!

You make so much sense. I think you're talking about ones confidence. Cause its like me, I usually feel ppl view me negatively and to correct that need to meet ppl that like me or I get on with. But because the negative thoughts come from negative experiences its hard to take another failure with others.

I think this advice is most useful for ppl who have gotten the recovery ball spinning in momentum and are in a passionate mindset.

[black_mamba]

Originally Posted by Tabitha

No. I would never expect to fail to in order to suceed. That is almost telling yourself you will fail and it is being being negative.
Tell yourself you will not fail, but if you do, then you can say you tried your best.
Failure is not an option. If you are determined to do something, take risks and keep trying
(Not sure who's quote the above is but I like it)

By failure I didn't mean ultimate failure whereby you cannot possibly ever try again (such situations are rare anyway). I mean if you're going to try something, realise that you won't get it perfect straight away. That's all. It's not about being negative, it's a realistic look at a learning curve where mistakes are part of the process.

Originally Posted by Zardo

Expect to fail in order to succeed only really works if you haven't had endless failure in your life already. If you're in a better position to actually succeed in reality and your life isn't really that bad then fine, to say this kind of advice otherwise is condescending!

I'm not really sure how my advice is condescending but I'm sorry you find it as such. Not my intention. Of course this advice isn't fool proof but it is very rare that we find ourselves in such a position that trying again isn't possible. Obviously if you've had endless setbacks over a very very long period of time then your mental state will be incredibly negative. In that situation yes I can see it's a bit silly saying that you're going to make a few mistakes, so I guess this advice is really only aimed at the people retep describes, people already with a spark of possibility in their minds.

^7000 posts!

[black_mamba]

Blimey 7000 !!

Do I get a prize? I want donuts.

Originally Posted by black_mamba

Blimey 7000 !!

Do I get a prize? I want donuts.

enjoy.

[AxelFendersson]

Saying 'expect to fail' doesn't sound quite right but the idea is sound. To progress, one must accept that there will be some pratfalls along the way and that things will sometimes go wrong before they go right. Once you've accepted this, then you can prepare yourself to deal with those failures as they occur and learn from them rather than giving up.

[maro111]

I like the saying "if you dont have the debts, you don't deserve the reward"

[diplodocus]

I agree that focusing on being successful is not always the best strategy because perfection is very hard to achieve but I don't fully agree that expecting to fail is the best way either.
If you expect to fail then it can be a self fulfilling prophecy. What I always found more helpful is to stop focusing on outcomes at all. I found that focusing on the process is much more important. You put your best effort in regardless of the outcome. This is what I gleaned from sports psychology and is the strategy adopted by elite athletes. Focusing on the process puts far less pressure on yourself and it's that pressure that can affect our performance detrimentally as well as making it harder to deal with an outcome if it's failure.

[VO2]

Originally Posted by diplodocus

I agree that focusing on being successful is not always the best strategy because perfection is very hard to achieve but I don't fully agree that expecting to fail is the best way either.
If you expect to fail then it can be a self fulfilling prophecy. What I always found more helpful is to stop focusing on outcomes at all. I found that focusing on the process is much more important. You put your best effort in regardless of the outcome. This is what I gleaned from sports psychology and is the strategy adopted by elite athletes. Focusing on the process puts far less pressure on yourself and it's that pressure that can affect our performance detrimentally as well as making it harder to deal with an outcome if it's failure.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you LEARN

[black_mamba]

Originally Posted by diplodocus

I agree that focusing on being successful is not always the best strategy because perfection is very hard to achieve but I don't fully agree that expecting to fail is the best way either.
If you expect to fail then it can be a self fulfilling prophecy. What I always found more helpful is to stop focusing on outcomes at all. I found that focusing on the process is much more important. You put your best effort in regardless of the outcome. This is what I gleaned from sports psychology and is the strategy adopted by elite athletes. Focusing on the process puts far less pressure on yourself and it's that pressure that can affect our performance detrimentally as well as making it harder to deal with an outcome if it's failure.

Yes I'd agree with that. I suppose expecting to fail is a clumsy way of putting it. Certainly trying new things, concerning yourself with the process itself regardless of outcome will help to clear the mind of any extraneous thoughts.

I've literally just been through a steep learning curve learning to paint and at the beginning, thoughts of the final outcome clouded my judgement and took me away from the present moment. Got a bin bag full of sh*tty paintings now.

[iTz0kt0Bu]

^ I'm good at drawing and crap at painting but recently I've been painting and I'm liking I it, I find that painting instinctively rather than trying to follow lots of rules is actually helping me learn to paint at the moment. Only cause it's much easier for me to learn from experience, I'm gonna use some rules to improve at painting but only as a tool since I'm learning from just using my experience kind of to paint, I'm also learning from mistakes.

You should keep a few of these bad painting so that you can compare them to future paintings as you get better. Tbh, I need to improve at drawing less controlled and more free, although being, controlled and perfectionist allows me to draw some things well it doesn't allow me to do expressive artwork or to draw a very wide range of things.

[syncsolo]

I actually love this advice, even if you fail a lot, expecting to is better than building up false hope you will succeed and feeling worse when you fail/get rejected. Though that isn't really the point, I expect to succeed more in things in future, I have tried but not enough times and sometimes just give up after one try. Also if you lack experience, motivation and haven't planned or studied enough it is more luck that a foregone conclusion, that you will pass whatever test is before you. But for now, I am realistic and trying not to give up too soon, although that's really want I want to do, but life will be even worse in a few years taking that road and ultimately doing nothing.

[black_mamba]

^Exactly, inactivity is worse than simply trying and not doing so good.

Originally Posted by retep

^ I'm good at drawing and crap at painting but recently I've been painting and I'm liking I it, I find that painting instinctively rather than trying to follow lots of rules is actually helping me learn to paint at the moment. Only cause it's much easier for me to learn from experience, I'm gonna use some rules to improve at painting but only as a tool since I'm learning from just using my experience kind of to paint, I'm also learning from mistakes.

You should keep a few of these bad painting so that you can compare them to future paintings as you get better. Tbh, I need to improve at drawing less controlled and more free, although being, controlled and perfectionist allows me to draw some things well it doesn't allow me to do expressive artwork or to draw a very wide range of things.

Same I'm good at drawing but rubbish at painting. I'm doing abstracts and stupidly thought it would be easy (it looks easy!) but I did that classic thing of mixing too many colours and ending up with brown sludge. I was also using a brush far too small for the size canvas I was working on and it looked goddamn awful. I couldn't keep them they were embarrassing lol, but I did take a photo of them so I could see how far I've gone when I do eventually reach the skill level I aspire to.

Taking my time and watching painting techniques on YouTube has helped me a lot. What sort of paintings are you doing?

[iTz0kt0Bu]

For now, I'm not doing serious paintings but have been doing paintings of people. I don't have high very expectations though.

[black_mamba]

^Yeah, hehe, that's prob why I'm comfy with the idea of failure. I'm so familiar with it as a definite stage before success!

[maro111]

Each time fail the expectation of failure is so much easier to come by

[black_mamba]

^I'm not sure what you mean maro?

[maro111]

Originally Posted by black_mamba

^I'm not sure what you mean maro?

Lol sorry..it wasn't well written. Just meant that each time I fail it reinforces my belief that I will fail next next. Im trying to be more positive though