Success

The way I got over my initial fear of failure was by starting small. I would take small steps that were minimally risky in the direction of my goal. At first, I would just take one small step to test the waters. Over time, I learned to take many small steps, all at once, as many as I could afford. The more the better. Spray and pray. Experience taught me that some of those steps are guaranteed to fail.  So, placing one small bet at a time was definitely a waste of time and resources. Better to see what fails and what does not so I have a path forward to work with.  Otherwise, I’d have to start all over again. And sometimes, even the small steps take a long time to see if they’ll work. If it does, I’ve really learned nothing about what works other than this one small thing. It’s a tiny breadcrumb.  Better to have many more data points to work with.

So, first I learned how to create options and then I learned to expect failure. To wait on it, and eventually, to hope it showed up early. Because failure would light the path and show me what works, and what does not. What doesn’t work goes in the “doesn’t work, don’t try that again without new information” folder. What does work goes in the “double down and explore this further” folder. The more options you create, the less personal you take failure. Because it will never be 100%, something will always be successful, the bigger the number of things you try.