Okay, What If This Fails?

We'll probably all just die anyway.

Hello there!

Welcome to Inchopps., the personal-finance and self-development newsletter for millennials and younger. If you were forwarded this email and would like to subscribe, you can do so here. You can also unsubscribe at any time. Past issues can be found here.

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Appetizer.

If you want to be great at something, you‘ve got to have the chops. 

Sometimes I think I’m an optimist. Not because I tend to be hopeful and confident about the future or the success of something but because I seem to see life as an unending chain of learning. So, there’s always something to look forward to. Always a new challenge.

I believe that no matter the level you find yourself, you owe it to you to always seek out ways to improve. I have attempted quite a number of crazy things so far in my lifetime. I always wondered why I did those stuff and why I never really stopped doing crazy things. Over time, I’ve come to realize the reason.

The first step to getting to your goal is realizing what you need to do. But realizing what you need to do doesn’t always come on a platter of gold - it’s not always easy. From the moment you know that a major step in achieving your goal is to realize what you need to do, you immediately begin to search for answers. 

In your quest to find answers, so many things you try and so many places you check will turn out to be wrong. This is what society calls failure.

You see, people are watching you try this thing but they have no idea what your motivation is. They expect you to succeed at it meanwhile you are after something else. They are focused on the particular outcome while you are focused on the big picture. 

It’s almost like someone in the field checking under every stone for the key to unlock his destiny. It’s easy for the onlookers to laugh at him every time he lifts a stone and finds nothing under but he is not bothered because he has a goal. His strategy could be to check under as many stones as possible within a short period. 

The difference between this story and yours is that you don’t always act like him. How many times have you allowed other people’s opinions to weigh you down and make you lose sight of the bigger picture? Do you even have an idea what your bigger picture looks like? Do you know what you have to do to get what you want? 

Main Dish.

Failure is one thing that has been over-demonized in society. You want to pass the exam at first try. You want to shoot your shot and hit it right the first time out. You want to do all these because expectations have been set for you and you are working within a timeline.

It is within your rights to want all these but the reality of life is that they don’t always happen this way. How then do you handle this?

Acknowledge it. 

You need to acknowledge that shit happens sometimes and you won’t always get it right at the first attempt. Heck, you might not get it right after 5 attempts. It is life and that is the reality. This doesn’t mean you won’t always get it right the first time. You just need to make that provision in your mindset to understand that shit happens. 

We are the same people who praise and idolize inventors and scientists for their contributions to humanity but tend to conveniently leave out the parts of their stories where they had to fail many times before getting it right. 

If for some reason, you happen to be a part of the group that decides not to leave out the failure part of these stories, you still somehow tend to conclude that these people must have had some sort of superpowers and that the same concepts and ideas could not possibly apply to you. That’s simply not true.

Learn From It. 

In your journey to becoming a better version of yourself, one thing you will be required to do the most is to be intentional. Once you have programmed your mind to understand that shit happens and you acknowledge when you don’t get things right, you are required to seek to understand why the shit happened. 

Now, there are generally two groups of reasons for this. One is the stuff you did or didn’t do. These are basically things under your control. While the other consists of things you could never control; like forces of nature, luck, and so on. 

Although there isn’t so much you can do about those things outside your control, it is still very important that you seek to identify them and label them appropriately. The goal here is to give yourself the best shot at getting it right the next time. Identifying the reasons under your control and working on being better at them gives you a better chance on your next try. 

Rinse and Repeat. 

The mere fact that you now understand that shit happens and you’ve allowed yourself to acknowledge and learn from it doesn’t mean that you will magically get it right the next time. Yeah, life is twisted like that. Sometimes, knowing is not enough. 

Just because you know what to do doesn’t mean that you will automatically get to do those things. The fact that you have learned that you need to embrace failure in order to identify the lessons doesn’t mean that you won’t freak out and go into depression the next time you fail. You might do all these things but you are not allowed to give up trying. 

It is at this point that you rinse and repeat the entire process. Acknowledge it, learn from it, and try again. The goal is to get it right eventually and the key to that is to never stop trying. You need to understand this. It is more about the long game than instant gratification. You can’t stop trying because as long as you do not stop, you will arrive at your destination. But once you stop, there is no way for you to get to your goal. 

Takeaway.

Over the years, I have learned how to feel the pain of failure, acknowledge the reality, open my eyes to see where it went wrong and identify how I can improve. This is not an easy process and like anything else in life, you might fail a few times while trying to master this. 

The fun part of this is that this destination you’re trying so hard to reach changes for every new destination you get to. There is always another hurdle to cross, always another mountain to climb. It never stops as long as you are alive, so why should you stop? Life is an unending chain of these things and the earlier you realize this, the better. 

Once you stop learning, you start dying. - Albert Einstein

Next Time…

Okay, enough of all these motivational talks for now! We will be attempting to explore why financial education is of any importance to you. What does it even mean and why should you care? You don’t want to miss it 😉.

Meanwhile, I hope you’re washing your hands regularly and properly distancing yourself. Do your best to stay safe.

Until next time,
Funbi

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P.S: It’s my birthday today! You can wish me a happy birthday by sharing today’s newsletter with everyone you know.