Postcard on Failure

The formula for failure.

One time at my former work place, my colleague wore a T shirt that had the inscription “Direction is better than speed” to work. I remember spending a few seconds admiring it and telling her how cool it was. I still think she looked like the definition of cool in it.

Fast forward to a few months after that riveting scene, I was listening to a podcast and the host made a remark along the lines of “Direction is better than speed because if you’re going south at full speed when you’re supposed to be going north, you’re only failing faster”.

I remember pausing the episode to think about how profound that statement was. As you would imagine, it reminded me of my colleague’s T shirt. I kept turning those words over in my heart, even long after I was done with the episode.

All of the above happened last year. A lot has happened since then. A lot has changed, and a lot is still changing.

As a perfectionist (a recovering one), I’m by design, an over thinker, and this often means that I stay on the drawing board for far too long because you know, God forbid anything goes wrong.

If you’re anything like me, what happens when you read or hear mantras like “Direction is better than speed” is that you find justification for waiting. I mean, your mind can’t really fault you for stalling on launching that new business if all you’re doing is making sure your compass isn’t cranky. If you can convince yourself that the reason you haven’t started that newsletter you really want to start is because you haven’t found a niche yet, I imagine it would help your heart beat a little better at night.

But I recently had what you would call an epiphany and that’s what I really want to share with you in this newsletter.

I stepped into this year with a lot of plans. As you might have already guessed, I’m a planner. I like to lay things out like Sunday morning accessories, take in their beauty and just keep gazing till I’m sure there is nothing missing. I like things to make sense.

But that has a terrible downside. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the “burden of potential”. It’s some phrase that loosely refers to the discomfort you feel when you have some unexecuted plans. Well, I know that phrase too well because I have a ton of unexecuted plans.  But I also do a good job of reminding myself that “direction is better than speed”.

Well, until recently…

I was seated on my own, lost in my head, as I often would, when a thought hit me. It started off as a question.

“If you’re going to fail at all, isn’t it better to fail faster?”

Hmmm. I paused my initial thought to focus on the latest intruder. It was in that moment that it hit me; fear was the real culprit in my stalling game. Fear of failure! I hate failing. I mean, no one likes to fail.

However, regardless of your relationship with it, the truth is that failure is fundamental. You’re going to cross paths with it every now and again. How you choose to greet it is entirely up to you, but you’re definitely going to bump into that guy somewhere in your journey of life.

So, if we can’t entirely avert failure, what’s then the point of fear?

The aftermath of that eureka moment was life changing. I’ve since announced a screenwriting course that will be out in August and started a few other projects I’ve been delaying for way too long. A tiny part of my heart is still worried about making mistakes, though.

But one thing I’ve learned so far is that as humans, we can’t escape our humanity. Things won’t always go according to plan and that’s okay. That should be okay. Don’t let fear stop you. Don’t let failure stop you. Adopt my new mantra:

If I’m going to fail at all, I rather fail fast.

Do you know the best part, though? You may not fail at all, and if you do fail, you will realize that failing fast has its perks. It gives you enough time to reroute and restrategize. It allows you to get to the end of every “what if…” Imagine how much fuller your life would be with less “what ifs”.

- Odinakachi Nwonu