Stop succeeding!

It’s a strange conundrum that we never know if we can do something unless we try, but most of us won’t try unless we know we can do it! Let’s not get into blaming schools, parents, or whoever for this unwillingness to risk failure, but recognise that an obsession with success holds us back. Hence the saying “Nothing fails like success”.

On the contrary, life’s learners are prepared to fail. They’re prepared to be bad at something, energised by the prospect of becoming good, and eventually great, at it. Only by not starting, or setting bar really low, can you avoid the essential failure. As the adapted phrase goes, “If at first you DO succeed, your goals are not ambitious enough!”

So be careful about criticising failures, and instead encourage colleagues to be more ambitious, supporting them as they learn, and ask more reluctant colleagues: “When did you last fail?”