Ever tried. Ever failed. No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. ~ Samuel Beckett. (thanks to my daily quote book from quoteflections.com for allowing me to consider this quote today)
I’ve failed a ton of times. I’ve tried dozens of things that were total flops. But have I failed enough? Have I failed “better?”
“Embarrassing” says my inner thoughts. What a goof!
What about the next time? Will I remember that failure? My mind has a clever way of never failing to remind me of what a mess I got myself into the last time. My mind has the uncanny ability to use that failure against me.
“Do you really want to go through all that misery again Noah? Really?”
And that’s the problem. That’s your lizard brain doing its thing. That’s your internal resistance tightening up. And that’s why so many are afraid to start, let alone fail. That’s why so many of us stand at the bottom of the mountain looking up and feel defeated even before we have begun. We are wondering how such an enormous hill could ever be climbed. It is easier to just sit at the bottom and wait.
Wait for what?
Sam Beckett suggests failing again. He suggests failing better. And no matter what, keep going. Keep failing. But each time, fail a little better.
How exactly can we fail “better?”
How can we keep going when the internal resistance grows with each failure?
I’m thinking that maybe when Beckett made that comment, he really meant it in a simplistic, easy to understand way:
Next time, fail a bit better. Even if just a little, but for goodness sake, keep failing. Always.
And I’m thinking, fail often enough and the resistance and all that tension will eventually go way. If you keep pulling an elastic band, it’s eventually going to break.
Once the resistance is out-of-the-way, there’s really nothing left in your way.
The sooner you start the better. Start again and again and again…
