Reframing Failure: What Did You Fail at Today?

Sara Blakely, businesswoman and founder of Spanx, grew up to her father asking, “What did you fail at today?”

If neither Sara nor her brother didn’t have any so-called failures to report—like perhaps falling off a bicycle while learning to ride or misspelling words on a vocabulary quiz—he’d be disappointed.

According to Sara, the question “What did you fail at today?” reframed failure as simply not trying new things—failing to take shots on goal. After all, failures are a byproduct of doing.

Having “failures” to report became a good thing. There was nothing to be ashamed of. Their best shortcomings sometimes even landed them high-fives from a proud pop. For the Blakey household, not trying new things became the real issue.

Too often, overblown thoughts of failure can hold you back, and Sara’s dad knew it. Fear of failure may even stifle us far more than reality ever would. And so, for tackling a misplaced fear of failure, asking “What did you fail at today?” is a helpful way you can reframe the traditional failure-success dichotomy.

Skiing, Falling and Reaching for Goals

Billionaire and philanthropist Ray Dalio also reframes failure as simply a byproduct of any bettering process. Dalio represents this idea with this skiing analogy:

“It's like you're going to ski or something.  You can't learn how to ski unless you're falling. So they [learners] don't mind the falling. They're not embarrassed about making mistakes. They're not worried also about the approval of others…Failure is part of a learning process. Right? What's the risk of failure? What, you'll be embarrassed? How do you distinguish failure from learning?

In your whole life, "failure" implies that you stopped, that the game stops. If it's part of a "you're failing and then you learn" mentality, then that learning is part of the movement forward. So that is what the process is like. Fail, learn, move forward.”

-Ray Dalio, (emphasis added)

Whether you’re trying to ski, or learn another skill, mistakes are usually a good thing, despite how they may feel. When you’re moving forward, falling down is just part of the learning process. And learnings can look an awful lot like failure.

Yet it’s hard for you to see failure in a positive light because much of your fear of failure—and its stifling power on the mind—comes from merely possible social penalties. These penalties could include embarrassment, shame, ridicule or merely what others might think or say, when you fall short.

But how much should you really care about what others may think of your “falls”?

Isn’t the real tragedy letting a fear of failure—and what others might think—prevent your adventure?

Perhaps fear of failure’s looming shadow is really cast more so by imagined social penalties—like shame or ridicule—when paired with a wild imagination.

But your mind can get carried away all too often; it can confuse vivid imaginations for statistical likelihoods. So to this glitch of compass I say: Beware what others might think or say, lest a keyboard slay yee!

Reframing Failure to Take More Shots on Goal

Taking zero shots on goal means no misses, and so no shame or embarrassment. You’ll blend in. You’ll conform.

But what are you really trying to accomplish?

The real problem seems to be letting certain thoughts of failure and embarrassment run wild, stifling you again and again. Reframing strategies offer you a way around this, by disarming misleading thoughts.

So by asking “What did you fail at today”, it helps change our relationship with failure. Rethinking potential failure in this way helps you put fear of failure put in its proper place. This way, you can improve your decision-making, leading you to take more “shots on goal”. If you take more shots on goal, you’ll inevitably tend to make a few.

In Short

Don’t forget that so-called failure, in whichever area of life, can be interpreted however you choose. Using reframing strategies, you can rob certain thoughts of their power. They offer you a good way to navigate one of the mind’s various trappings.

And perhaps, millennia ago, Epictetus was first to get the idea right when he said, “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

Nonetheless, do yourself a favor and don’t forget to ask, “What did you fail at today?”

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple really. Double your rate of failure.”

-Thomas John Watson, IBM Founder

“Faced with a bad result, one loses all too easily the right perspective for what one has done”

-Friederich Nietzsche