Dec 8, 2017
Strive to fail often! (on the Internet)
The internet has given us access to an audience, to the content and to he opinions of millions of people! Yet, all we choose to do is be silent spectators. Why? Why don’t we use the internet as an opportunity to do something we have never done before? Why don’t we strive to fail often on the internet?
The embarrassment, I tell you!
Striving to fail was not a compelling idea, in the beginning. I had always wanted to write Medium posts, but, the fear of failing my internet community held me back.
What if they make fun of my writing? What if they don’t like my writing? What if they stop being friends with me?
I floated through the sea of these questions for weeks, until motivational videos, supportive friends and podcasts convinced me to pursue my goal of writing on Medium.
For the first time in my life, I sat down and typed my way through my first (important) Medium post and pushed the ‘Publish’ button. That post was a sensational…failure! My fears had come true and surprisingly, I wasn’t scared. My failure in front of millions of (internet) users changed my perception. I realized —
- More failure implies less fear
After I failed in my first Medium post, I realized that my fear of failure for the coming posts had decreased. As the fear had decreased, I was able to write each post that followed without unnecessary drama! Writing those posts, taught me a lot about the art of writing. I write better posts now (at least, I think so), thanks to every post that failed.
The more we prevent failure, the more we prevent learning.
- Extrapolation
I was able to carry the reduced fear to other aspects of my life. Because I had failed in front of an audience of millions of people, the fear of failing in front of a small crowd while delivering a speech seemed trivial, the fear of presenting my work to my peers seemed manageable!
Extrapolate that reduced fear of failure to all walks of life and conquer them.
Now that I’ve established a compelling case for failing (on the internet). Why don’t you take your first step to being an internet sensation by being an internet failure. Go on, write that Medium post, answer that Quora question or make that Youtube video.
If you fail, your fear of failure will reduce. If you succeed, you know who to thank!
