You Will Probably Fail, and That’s Okay
“I want to start a business, but…”
“This job doesn’t make me feel fulfilled, and I want to look for a new job, but…”
“He’s a great person, but…”
Be honest. How many times have you asked some of the questions above every time you want to start something new?
Then there’s that one little voice inside your head that tells you:
“What’s the point? You will probably fail anyway.”
Then there you are.
Stop dead in your track, get discouraged, and put all your dreams and plans inside that tiny box deep in your mind labeled Dead Dreams, and continue with whatever you are doing.
Even though it’s killing you inside to keep doing the things and it’s killing you much more that there are things that you wanted to do but you still haven’t given them a try.
We all have heard this way too many times. From countless of our friends, family, and all those self-help gurus: “Don’t be afraid. Just put your minds through it and you will succeed”
Well, duh.
I wish that fear is a light switch that we could easily switch off, but we all know that’s not the case. And if that’s the case, everyone probably will be much happier and live the life we have always wanted.
Everything begins with one single step. One single action.
It doesn’t matter how great your ideas are or how many resources you have, if you never do what you want to do, it will always be that–ideas. And ideas mean nothing if you don't put them to work.
It’s not about who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you. — Rachel Dawes (Batman Begins)
We always have that one thing (or maybe things) in our life that we always wanted to do.
We want to get fit. Increase our income. Get in a relationship. But life happens and we get caught in this intricate web of distraction and put aside all the things we truly wanted.
We tell ourselves, “I will get to it when I have the time.”
Yet, look where we are. Still pretty much at the same place, and sooner or later, we start to forget about those dreams and aspirations.
We procrastinate and put those things and give the justification that we don’t have the time for it when, for us to achieve what we want, we have to make time for it.
Do we don’t have the time for it?
Or are we afraid deep inside?
The First Step is The Most Important Step
Will we fail? Probably.
Remember when you were learning how to ride a bike for the first time? And how you fell and got back on your bike and do it all over again and again until you can finally ride it without falling?
You would probably never be able to ride a bike if you didn’t do the most important step. Which is to hop on the bike, give the pedal a push, and ride.
It pretty much looks the same as everything that you want to do in your life. For you to achieve something, be it small or big, you have to take the first step. Because the first step is always the most important one.
Maybe the only difference is when we were a child and fell from our bikes we would scratch our legs and hurt ourselves physically.
But as an adult, when we fail to do something the pain will be much more than physical pain, it will hurt us emotionally. And that is scary. A growing number of researches have shown us that emotional pain hurts almost the same as physical pain.
It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day — that’s the hard part. But it does get easier. — Bojack Horseman
Sometimes we tend to compare ourselves with other people. Seeing how far they have gone and how successful they are.
Meanwhile here we are, still pretty much nowhere near them, while it seems everyone is already way up above.
We compare our position with others and after realizing the gap between where we are with where they are, we ended up discouraged because we tend to question whether we can achieve what they have or not.
The thing is, we all have different trajectories of life with other people.
What we see in others' achievements is the mere results of what they have been doing for a long time. We probably don’t see their process. How many times they have failed. The rejections they had. The tears they shed. And all the countless experiences we don’t see on their Instagram stories.
Remember, it took Thomas Alva Edison more than a thousand tries before he successfully invented the light bulb.
“I have not failed 10,000 times — I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” — Thomas Alva Ed
So, what’s next?
You can start by asking yourself what is the one thing that you want to do and start doing it.
In my case, I have always wanted to write on Medium.
Hell, I have created a lot of draft stories, yet I haven’t published a single story.
Because there’s always this creeping voice at the back of my head that says a lot of awful things. That I’m not good enough. Or not interesting enough. Or I will just fail and fall right on my face.
But at the same time, there’s this subtle force within me that always try to push me and break the barrier. To write and publish my stories.
Sure, the possibility of failure will always be there.
But, what if we change the narrative?
What if instead of saying “You will probably fail.”, we say “You will probably succeed.”?
I don’t know why, but it’s good enough for me to be able to wrap up and publish this story instead of letting it sit on my draft for months.
Besides, we miss all the shots we didn’t take, don’t we?
