I have a guiding principle that I carry into my work. The principle is two of my favorite four-letter F-words. They are: Fail fast. These words are motivators that help me stay focused on my career growth.
One of the key lessons I realized at the start of my career in the corporate environment is that I knew I would make a lot of errors and fail quite often. To stay in my career, I also recognized that I needed to learn from the mistakes to implement changes and act as quickly as possible.
Fail Fast
I have been in the tech world for ten years. Before that, I spent over 25 years in the non-profit arena, specifically in church ministry, where I worked as a musician, music director, and director of worship. During that time, I directed a large gospel choir, and I shared with them that I only have three rules to be in the choir:
- Follow the director at all times.
- Remember that there are no mistakes, only great recoveries (I learned this from one of my professors during graduate studies).
- When in doubt, follow the director at all times.
Every Sunday as a choir, we operated a process from start to finish. Our goal was to help empower and lead people in worship. The focus was on how we could facilitate a process and not be in the way (recover quickly from our mistakes).
Career Transition
Over time I realized I needed to transition to a new career because I could not sustain myself financially in the church work. The transition took some time, but once I landed in the corporate environment, I knew I would make every effort to be my best and bring my best to the job. I also knew I would make a lot of mistakes in the learning process.
Five Valuable Work-Ethic Principles
In addition to the principle to fail fast, I also realized I need to implement a few more guiding principles that would complement my career:
- Fail fast – find out the “why” of the error, and act on the insights as quickly as possible.
- No mistakes, only great recoveries – the inner mantra to fail fast.
- Be humble – own up to the errors we make.
- Ask questions – seek to understand the “why.”
- Keep showing up – every day.
I work with some incredibly talented colleagues and a work environment that challenges me to bring my best self every day. The most exciting part of my job is that when I fail, and if I am gifted with tomorrow, I have the opportunity to show up again at the table of learning to experience new insights and ways to improve.
I know I will be smarter today than I was yesterday because I have the chance to grow and get better.
The Internal Work
Throughout my career, and even to this day, I
Also, I must confess I am a recovering perfectionist. There are times when I still beat myself up internally for making mistakes. I have grown to coach myself in a way that is positively empowering. One of the things I love about the current job is that I love going to work every day because I know I am going to learn something from my ideation, experiments, and errors. I am going to learn something new that will expand my mindset and help me get better, so I can keep moving forward in the direction of improvement.
I am not an expert in psychology, yet I know that part of the struggle with doubt is due to imposter syndrome, anxiety caused by undervaluing your strengths and self-worth. The internal tape still plays in my head, “Do I deserve to be in this job? I don’t know anything about tech. What am I doing here? Why am I here?” The good news is I have learned to turn the volume way down on those spinning mental tapes and pay closer attention to the strong inner voices of confidence, courage, and self-belief.
Fail Fast and Often
Throughout your career, recognize that you will fail and fail often. One of our biggest obstacles is our inner critic of self-negation. The key is to learn the insights and takeaways from the mistakes and then move forward with alacrity.
We can do amazing things when we keep showing up, no matter how many times we fail. Keep showing up at the next meeting, the next program, the next opportunity. We keep growing when we keep learning from our mistakes. Persistence is
The minute we fail is the minute we stop.
Denise Pyles
Your Turn
Fail fast. Keep showing up in life, in work, in relationships. Continue being relentless in your persistent growth and learning.
Every day we have an opportunity to bring our best selves to the day, to our work, to our family, friends and colleagues.
What helps you listen to the internal messages that are positive and nurturing instead of the negative ones that hold you back?
I welcome your comments.
Note: This blog post came from my talk during a panel discussion at the WomenITPros July 26, 2019 v-meetup –“ My Favorite Mistake…and Recovery.” (My input begins at the 17:15 mark).
Recent Comments