Learn More, Better

I fail over and over and over again. 

I set an intention, I make a pact, A commitment—then I fail. 

I reflect. Evaluate. Iterate. 

Set an intention. Make a pact. A commitment. 

Just to fail again. 

Sometimes the goals are too lofty.

Sometimes I let my brain best me. 

But sometimes…

Sometimes

I come out on top. 

I set an intention and conquer it. 

Destroy it. 

I win. 

In those moments, all of the failure is worth it. 

All of the disappointment. 

The struggle. 

The sacrifice. 

In stacking all of that failure, I become successful. 

Just to fail again. 

Because through failure we learn lessons that success never teaches.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were visiting her family. We play games each time we visit. Card games. Board games. Fortnite. Yeah, they’re pretty cool. 

We all love competing and winning and this is a fun way to do that. 

But not all games are created equally. 

Games like Fortnite and Spades, we play each time we visit. Yet there are two games that her dad refuses to play with her and her mom because they absolutely shit on anybody at them. 

Jump (Chinese Checkers) and Mastermind. 

I hate losing. Even in trivial situations—it eats at me. 

Thus, I struggle playing these games with them. 

But my dumbass plays anyway. 

It’s okay. It’ll be fun this time. I won’t get pissed and want to throw the game. I won’t feel like an oaf as they sit there impatiently patiently waiting for me to solve what they figured out four turns ago. 

After getting frustrated to the point of conceding at Mastermind, my wife said something that will stick with me forever. 

I prefer when I get most of them wrong. I learn more from being wrong than from being right. It actually makes it easier to solve. 

Seeing that behind my calm and entirely collected demeanor, I was seething—she lovingly (and pitifully) tried to describe her process of solving the game to me. 

I immediately lost focus, thinking about the gravity of what she had just said to me. 

And maybe because I was a little pissed about my inability to solve the puzzle, quitting, and receiving a pity lesson within a span of 10 seconds. 

Some mental gymnastics later I got, you learn more from failure. 

And it’s the truth. 

If you want to learn, set your intentions, make an earnest effort, and allow yourself to fail if that is the outcome of that effort. Then, reflect on what caused you to fail and iterate. 

You only stand to gain everything.