We all make mistakes – it’s how we learn.

It regularly surprises me that so many people seem afraid to fail.

When I talk to people about blogging (and often, this is in order to convince them to try it), one of the things I hear a lot is that they are worried about writing something that’s incorrect or that other people might not agree with. WOW, I’ve never thought that when writing these blog pieces. This is an alien concept to me but seeing as though so many people say it, I thought it was worth giving some time to in this post.

I often get a similar reaction when talking to people about how I started my business at 19, straight out of University. They say things like: ‘I could never have done that’, or ‘you’re very brave doing that’ Well the truth is I never even questioned it – not once. Failure was not an option – I was going to throw everything I had at my business in order to see it succeed.

You probably won’t remember back to when you were one, but around that time you probably learnt to walk. Did it happen straight away? Did you bounce up one day from crawling, onto two feet and proudly walk around? I’ll tell you now, you didn’t! You probably had a few goes and quite a few falls – some really hurt. You failed a number of times but you persisted and then, one day, you were finally able to walk

Richard Branson, in his book ‘Business Stripped Bare’ (aff link) gives another good example of this in the music world (one he knows pretty well ). Listen to a musician learning to play a new song. They try and try again before getting it right, they fail hundreds of times, it’s just part of the process.

It seems to me, that as we are growing up we’re more prepared to fail in order to learn. What happens when we become adults? Why do some many people become afraid to step out of line and do something a bit different?

I think this separates the true Entrepreneurs – they don’t have this worry about failure, it’s just part of the process.

So here’s the thing, if you don’t push your boundaries, if you don’t try new things with a preparation for getting it wrong, then you’re not going to get anywhere new. Entrepreneurs are awesome at this – they don’t question failure, it’s part of their makeup. They pick themselves up after a fall, dust themselves off and learn from it.

Through life, you’d be extremely lucky if everything you do works out exactly as planned, every decision you make ends up being the right one – it rarely happens.

So get stuck in – don’t question the what might be’s – try and find out for yourself….today

Do you worry about failure or do you just jump on in? I’m really interested to know your views on this.