It’s very simple. You will fail. A lot. No matter who or where you are, what your qualities & capabilities may be. It’s a universal law of nature that no man or woman can glide through life without failing at things they try or falling short of their expectations.

Of all the new projects you start, whether personal or professional, you end up failing at significantly more than half of them, if you’re normal. And that’s alright. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just the way it is.

But what if I told you there’s a way to hack this. Failure is inevitable, but there is a particular approach through which you can derive benefits from your failures.

I learnt about this approach for the first time in one of Scott Adams’ book (he’s the guy who created famous comic strip ‘Dilbert’).

This approach conceptualizes: more skills equals more chances of overall success in life. Basically learning new skills is a good thing. It’s beneficial in every respect.

So how does this relate to failure? Scott tells his readers to always be on the lookout for projects/jobs/experiences that will leave them with one or more new skills, even if they failed at those projects/jobs/experiences. The trick is to choose your failures wisely.

For example, you might be contemplating whether or not to take an internship in a start-up. There could be high chances that you fail big time, but if the experience has potential to teach you skills like managing multiple projects, taking radical responsibility, fast paced decision making & execution, then the net gain from this experience is bound to be positive.

{this was an entirely cooked up example. Insert your own predicament here}

This kind of thinking can also help with getting more value for your time invested. Before entering into any project, you can ask yourself “what skills, habits or relationships can this experience help me build, even if I fail?”

Hence by focusing on the answer to the above question throughout the project, you will be diversifying your time/energy investment & would save yourself from putting all your eggs in one basket.

If you want to take a look at all the books I’ve read, click here: The list

Happy learning!