Embracing Failure: Your Path to Success
You are a failure.
…or at least you should be.
When we try new things, we're going to make mistakes and fall flat on our faces, and that's okay. It's all part of the process. Today we're going to explore why you need to make mistakes and what it means for doing things right.
Today we're doing something a little bit different. When I first started this channel, I wanted to equip people to tell the stories of the things that are happening around them. These are people that might not have access to the nice filmmaking gear. They might not have a ton of filmmaking experience, and if that's you, it's okay to feel overwhelmed. But the important thing is to make sure you don't let that stop you from ever starting.
Before I started this channel, I wanted everything to be perfect. I looked into all the different ways that people make YouTube videos, and I sat on the idea for years as I did this research. In his book “Quitter”, Jon Acuff writes, "90% perfect and shared with the world always changes more lives than 100% perfect and stuck in your head." There's an old Chinese proverb: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." If you're thinking about making videos, you need to just start. Jump in and try it. Don't wait for the perfect gear to start. Start simple. Pull out your phone, start capturing footage of events, gather knowledge, sure, but don't let that be the thing that holds you back from ever starting.
Now, if you're like me, you're afraid of jumping in and making a mistake. Famous American author Elbert Hubbard wrote, "The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." Don't let your mistakes define you. The reality is that the world might consider you a failure when you make a mistake. Mistakes are part of the process of learning; they're how you get better at your craft. So when you make a mistake, don't let it discourage you. Don't let it define you. Instead, learn from it and figure out what you can do differently next time. I have made so many mistakes in my career, but the key has been that I've learned from them and figured out what I can do next time to make it better.
There's something called the 85% rule. Researchers have found that failing 15% of the time is the optimum way to gain new skills and information. If you fail less, it means it's too easy. If you fail more, then it's going to lead to discouragement. Failure creates challenges and can be discouraging, but you need to persevere. I've put out some YouTube videos that haven't performed as well as I thought they would, but I've gone back, looked at those videos, and tried to figure out if there's anything I could do next time differently.
Ira Glass, arguably one of the greatest storytellers of our modern day, talks about what it's like when we first start a creative field: "For the first couple years that you're making stuff, what you're making isn't so good. Okay, it's not that great. It's trying to be good; it has ambition to be good, but it's not quite that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you're making is kind of a disappointment to you. You know what I mean. Everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you're going through it right now, if you're just getting out of that phase, you got to know it's totally normal. And the most important possible thing you could do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month, you know you're going to finish one story. Because it's only by actually going through a volume of work that you're actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you're making will be as good as your ambitions."
We're going to put out projects that don't live up to our own standards, but there is some good news. Often we are our own worst critic. I've had so many videos that I've put out, and I've looked at them and been discouraged because they didn't meet the expectations I set for them, only to have someone turn around and tell me how much that video meant to them. When we do have those moments that we're discouraged by our work, though, look at what you can do better and try to improve it by 1% next time. I know it sounds like a little bit, but if you improve 1% on this video, and then the next video, and the next video, think about how far down the road you're going to be in just a year.
You may have noticed this red guy appearing in many of my videos. He's not just a knick-knack on my desk; he's a reminder to dream on and try new things. His name is Joy, and he's from Ben Rector's album *The Joy of Music*. In early 2022, Ben released a song called "Dream On." The song is all about the challenge of losing the ability to dream and try new things. This song was released in a season when I realized that I had stopped dreaming. I had stopped pursuing the dreams that had been laid in my heart. The chorus says, "Even when you're afraid all your dreams may be gone, dream on, dream on. When the world says you're crazy, just tell them they're wrong, dream on." This song was a reminder to me to continue to dream on, even if I might fail, to pursue the things that have been laid on my heart. I went ahead and bought a Joy squishy stress ball, whatever you want to call it, to remind me every day to pursue those dreams.
As we head towards 2024 and start new goals, new plans, and a new year, I want to leave you with this quote from Neil Gaiman: "I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something."
