How Risking Failure Can Make You Happier
Have you ever thought about taking a chance? Risking failure?
Maybe right now you’re thinking about starting a business, running a marathon, learning a new skill, or going back to school. Maybe you’re thinking about doing something simple, like asking your boss for a raise, or something complex, like trying to convince your board of directors to pursue a multi-million dollar business venture. Maybe you’re thinking about asking someone new out on a date, investing in a promising new stock, or changing careers.
With all these opportunities at your fingertips, what’s keeping you from taking a chance?
If your answer to that question involves fear of failure, listen up. The field of positive psychology suggests that you’re much more likely to regret “failing to act” than “acting and failing.”
If you’re looking for a little incentive to take a big chance, consider these words from Harvard Psychologist Daniel Gilbert:
In the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did, which is why the most popular regrets include not going to college, not grasping profitable business opportunities, and not spending enough time with family and friends.
We’ve got a lot of ideas about what decisions we’ll live to regret, and many of these ideas are just plain wrong.
Case in point: Let’s say that you own Stock in ACME Corporation. Last year, you thought about switching to stock in Big-Profit corporation, but decided against it, and now you’ve learned that you would have made an extra $1,000 dollars if you’d made the switch. Conversely, let’s say that during the same time you bought shares in RipOff Industries and ended up losing $1,000. Which of these two scenarios do you think you would regret the most? The foolish action? Or the foolish inaction?
According to Gilbert:
Studies show that 9 out of 10 people expect to feel more regret when they foolishly switch stocks than when they foolishly fail to switch stocks, because most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies also show that 9 out of 10 people are wrong.
So why do foolish actions tend to make us happier than foolish inactions? The answer is simple: we learn from our failures.
Although it is possible to learn lessons by watching the failures of others and by reminiscing about all our lost opportunities, those lessons are not as immediate or tactile as those learned through hands-on trial and error. Put more simply, when you try hard to achieve something and fail despite your best effort, you are often able to justify your hard work with stories of valuable lessons learned and the quality of the experience itself.
But if you passively watch your opportunities evaporate, you’ll have no such justification.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we should jump at every high-risk opportunity, nor does it make the analysis of those opportunities easier.
But it does suggest that if you’ve been considering a big life-change for a while now, have weighed the pros and cons, and are sure you want to do it — and the only thing holding you back is fear of failure — your best play might be to go for it.
October 23, 2007 Tuesday at 9:13 pm
JohnPlace 14 Responses to “How Risking Failure Can Make You Happier”
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Nice Article, it’s so true. Even though many times “fear of failure” keeps us in check, most of the times its what causes the failure itself.
Okay, I’ll buy into part of this. I do regret some “roads not taken,” such as not learning more from my grandmother while she was here. But more so, I regret those “failures” that become public (part of your “permanent record” so to speak) such as taking unsuitable employment in desperate circumstances which results in a buckshot employment history that disables you from getting the job that does suit you. Or reaching a financial impasse due to never breaking the poverty level and declaring bankruptcy (twice). Or choosing a college major based on convenience (you can write in a 12×60 mobile home with three boys under age 7, but studio art is quite impossible) without regard for economic or emotional outcomes because those priorities are secondary to getting through each day, getting the kids to school, getting yourself to school, getting yourself to work, getting through that darn degree (only took 11 years!) because everybody knows you can’t get a decent job without a college education. Fast forward ten years and discover you can’t get a decent job _with_ a college education either! There comes a point where all these highly public failures just balloon and subsume opportunity. From where I sit, the road not taken holds far more opportunity than the roads I did, perhaps because the grass is always greener there and the road I took was full of potholes and boulders! Ah well, life goes on and so do I. Big thanks for being here for us!
King: Thanks for the comment!
Ellen: Believe me, I feel your pain, and I have much agreement with your post.
Like I said, this information doesn’t make the analysis any easier.
Some people might accuse me of being retentive, but I like to do a thorough ROI for every big life move, and it is when such analysis yields a logical green-light that the information in this article is most beneficial. In other words, when all signs indicate that the opportunity before you is a good one and the only thing holding you back is fear.
If it’s something that you want badly enough, you can either spend your life wondering what might have been or you can take your first step toward a number of potentially painful lessons. If the opportunity looks like a good one, I generally opt for the second approach, which is the primary reason this blog exists, allowing me to share ideas with wonderful people like you. :)
[...] of it: We can look deep within our hearts and dream of a better situation for ourselves and our families; dream of better financial lives and better emotional or physical [...]
My name is Ellen Rennard, but I am NOT the Ellen Rennard who writes on this site, and I am wondering if there might be some way to distinguish us, because I do not wish to be identified with this site in any way. If the person using that name is not actually Ellen Rennard, perhaps a different pseudonym could be used. Thank you.
I find your request a little strange, Ellen. The world is full of people who share the same name. I’m not going to ask a member to change her handle just because she shares your name…
JohnPlace,
Well, hmmm, I think what I asked was, “if the person using that name is not actually Ellen Rennard, perhaps a different pseudonym could be used.” Then I also asked if there might be some way to distinguish us (like if the other Ellen Rennard has a middle initial she wouldn’t mind including, for example). I have a business on line and so I don’t want my clients to be confused. Another way to help you see this — if your name were George Bush, would you want to be confused with the president? I sure wouldn’t.
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