The Key Source Of Failure

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor

The Key Source Of Failure (And What To Do About It)

Most entrepreneurs and leaders believe that the key source of their failures in projects, missions, and enterprises comes from, not planning well, not doing certain things, or having done the wrong things. 

That is when entrepreneurs and leaders are attempting to take full responsibility for what's happening in their worlds. When entrepreneurs and leaders do not attempt to take responsibility, they place the blame for their failures on external circumstances, such as misbehaving employees, ferocious competitors, lack of funding, lack of networks, lack of opportunity, and pure bad luck. That is a victim mentality. 

Then there are those that do not even acknowledge the failure and invest all their energy in keeping a happy front while suffering terribly inwardly, keeping themselves busied to the point where there is no opportunity to think about what’s blocking their success. 

I invite those to consider failure not as a permanent and objective state of a sort, but as a satisfaction aimed at but missed. Acknowledging failure allows one to investigate it without having to repeat the same mistakes in slightly different flavors. Also, placing the blame on anything outside of yourself puts you as a leader in a very powerless position, rendering you unable to take effective action and inviting a series of new poorly chosen actions that will repeat the past outcomes. Taking full responsibility for satisfaction aimed at but missed gives one a powerful place to stand. 

We will discuss such scenarios of missed opportunities for responsibility and develop additional frameworks of thinking and action that will help those that place the blame on others and/or fail to acknowledge and deal with their breakdowns and dissatisfaction. 

In this article, we will focus on those responsible entrepreneurs that are prone to take action in a fast and furious manner, and consider that the source of their failure lies in having not planned well or not done something right. 

I believe that such noble entrepreneurs with good intentions are “looking for love in all the wrong places”, colloquially speaking. The key source of their lack of desired success is not in those domains. 

Our interest in this conversation is to help those noble go-getters that develop the interpretations that they didn't plan the right thing, didn’t do the right things or didn’t work hard enough, which then led to failure. 

So here it is—While placing the focus on the importance of doing, responsible leaders and entrepreneurs, miss the source of their failures—their way of being. They consider their way of being as a part of their personality, which is fixed, and about which nothing much could be done. Every now and then, they may get a glimpse of their way of being, but since it is considered at least in the short term somewhat permanent, they feel sorry for themselves and resign themselves to be able to do anything about it. 

Such entrepreneurs may even sense that there is something off or missing in their general way of being but tell themselves that they will deal with it, once they have built a successful business, successful career, and successful life. They tell themselves that once I have made real money, then I’ll change myself. 

Unfortunately, life does not deliver that way. Without making a serious change in the way of being, the mistakes keep repeating themselves, in different shapes and forms. A fixed way of being generates more or less similar ways of doing which then, in turn, generate similar results. The past repeats itself. It is quite unfortunate that in spite of best intentions and best efforts the key source of failure remains hidden from the eyes of actors and over time more fatigue, more resentment, and more resignation about new possibilities build up. All too often noble go-getters get trapped in a time loop. 

This phenomenon is depicted in a fun way in many sci-fi thrillers. (e.g. In "Cause and Effect," the 18th episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation) where after a few times of the spaceship being trapped in a time loop, some of the more observant staff begin to notice that something is off and begin to make alternative choices. The sci-fi thrillers depict the phenomenon well but do not provide a practical solution for people trapped in real-life time loops. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can escape this trap of the time loop which seems to repeat itself. At first, when you are young and starting out, the trap may not be clear. But after you have repeatedly confronted a similar situation with similar outcomes, you may begin to wonder, how am I being that is generating this reality for me. Are you being authentic, or are you being manipulative? Are you being generous, or are you being miserly? Are you being optimistic or are you being skeptical in business, work, and personal relationships? Are you being courageous, open, and curious in the face of breakdowns, or are you being scared, frustrated, and playing small with your career and work? Are you being balanced in the face of unending tasks, or are you being hysterically industrious and keeping yourself occupied with unyielding activities? Remember the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same action while expecting different results. 

Those ways of being will determine the quality of all your actions, all your doing. The ways of being are not permanent parts of your personality. They are just opinions about how the world is and integrated into your daily habit patterns. What are you doing to interrupt those habit patterns? Whose help are you recruiting to assist you in breaking away from your usual ways of being? If you ignore your ways of being and make no investment into shifting those, you can count on having the same results that you have been having. If you are interested in making a serious shift in your power and results in life, I recommend that you take stock of your ways of being, by asking yourself the question; "How am I being?" and "How can I be different?" and let the insights emerging from those questions determine "What am I doing?" and "What can I do differently?"