Do We Really Need To Fail?

By Billi Lim December 2000

Many people whom I have met during my seminar and travels always have a particular question in mind " Do we really need to fail?" Wouldn't it be nice if a person does not need to fail at all!

Some even advocate that we can learn from success instead of failure. I must admit all these questions have its merit. And all these questions also point to something which I have I have always said - Somehow we human beings have been programmed to shun failure and that it is something "bad".

I hope that I can answer both these questions through this article. First we have to analyse this something known as "learning". How does a human being learn? We learn by seeing, hearing, experimenting, copying. Assuming nothing goes wrong - we continue to learn by walking just the right path. But how do we know which is the right path unless we know what is the wrong path?

So it's actually from trail and error that a person learns to do the right thing. Just like a plane flying from KL to London. It corrects itself so many times before it reaches its final destination. Looking at the diagram below, you will notice that the plane makes more wrong path than right path.

You will note that the only time when we are truly on the right path is that moment in the zig-zag when the plane crosses the true path.

If you were to ask any pilot, they will tell you that once the plane is in the air, and when it is switched on to auto-pilot, the plane's inertial guidance system takes over. The system ensures that once the plane stayed off course, it corrects it to finally reach its destination. And as you can see from the diagram above, the plane stayed away more times than not.

So it is the same with our own lives. Our 'life' which is represented by the 'plane' will constantly go off-course. And it's through the mistakes, set-backs and failures that we 'learn' to do the right thing and finally reach our goals. We should therefore not be afraid of the mistakes, setbacks or failures. They are part and parcel of the journey towards our goals. And there is no way that we can avoid them
- so long as we are going to learn.

Listen to what a wise-person say: - " If I'm not making any mistakes, I can be sure I am not learning and growing."

So before I pen off, I would like to share this interesting finding with all of you. Why does a pilot have to go through years of training when once a plane is on auto- pilot - he practically doesn't need to do anything? The answer was given by the Chairman of Boeing during an interview on CNBC recently
- The pilots spent years in their training to learn about what to do WHEN THINGS GO WRONG!

There you are. Life is not about running away from mistake or giving up when we fail. It is about learning from our mistake and failures and learning how to handle them to finally reach our goals.

Wishing you all an inspiring year ahead.

To all readers of Chinese Descent,
GONG XI FA CAI

Your traveler in time.

Billi Lim

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