I subscribe to Seth Godin blog and today he writes about learning from your mistakes.
This is a common topic and that is the first thing that came to mind while reading the post, although with Seth I usually have to read his post 2-3 times to find the hidden meaning.
He writes:
When will we learn?
It’s essential that we make new mistakes.
We don’t make nearly enough of them. Not enough original effort, not enough generous intent, not enough daring in search of something better.
But at the same time, we need to stop making the old mistakes again and again. What did you expect to happen when you did the very same thing that didn’t work last time?
For some of us, it’s more frightening to do something new than it is to retry something that failed.
Seth Godin
What I interpret here is that yes you should fail and fail fast but did you actually learn from your mistakes? meaning in your second attempt at that new product or project did you do something different? did you stretch yourself enough? did you feel a bit of fear in the second attempt?
The take away for me is to go for it and put your best effort, if you fail look back at what you did and learn from it, then ask yourself what should be done differently? and finally when trying again are you doing the same thing, meaning is it in your comfort zone or did you stretch out side of it.
Next time stretch to you feel a fear when you do it.
RLDH 