From the Inspirational Thought Unit
Do not let failure stop you from creating.
Instead, what you fail at and how often you fail should be a diagnostic for how much you're growing.
When you succeed at something you are usually blind to what part luck played in it. However, when you fail you can see everything that went wrong from personal shortcomings to bad luck. The key is to turn that failure into a learning experience and to let that inform your next attempt.
I used to think that some day I'd get to the point where every drawing would be perfect, every project would be a home run because I'd have finally mastered the craft, and could just execute all the time.
What I realized 25 years into this career is that you don’t get to a point in life where you are done failing, you just fail in different ways. In fact, I would argue that if you aren’t failing, you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough.
I remember hearing an athlete talk about the "Rule of Thirds," (no, not THAT rule of thirds).
If I remember it right, she said that if you're working on something hard one third of the time it should feel really good and be a blast to do, one third of the time it should be just okay, and one third of the time you should be failing and feeling like you have no business doing this.
That’s how you know you are in the right spot. That’s how you know you’re growing.
If it’s always easy you’re not growing and you aren’t pushing yourself. If it’s always failure you’re pushing yourself way too hard and still aren’t growing.
Find that sweet spot of one third wins, one third okays, and one third fails.
(Found the video of the athlete who talked about the one thirds rule: LINK)
-Jake
