Designing your Life by Bill Burnet & Dave Evans

Author:Bill Burnet & Dave Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joosr Ltd

Failure is an intrinsic part of the design process: successful designers know how to embrace it

Behind every product that you have in your house will be numerous and varied failures. Luckily for you, the designers did not give up when they failed—instead they reframed the failure as an opportunity to improve. This is the attitude you should embrace when it comes to designing your life.

The first step to reframing failure is to understand that your life design plan is not finite. This means there is no chance of you ultimately failing at life. Remember, the design process has no ending: it is ongoing, changing, and ever-evolving. What’s more, you can succeed at failing—you just need to be able to acknowledge and categorize your failures, so that you can see the hidden learning opportunities.

There are three types of failure: screw-ups, weaknesses, and growth opportunities. Looking back over the past six months, identify any perceived failures, and write them down. Perhaps you forgot your wedding anniversary? Maybe you missed a big deadline at work? Did you get a speeding ticket because you were late for work again?

Each of these “failures” can be reclassified in one of the three specified categories. Forgetting your wedding anniversary is, at the end of the day, just a screw-up. You have probably since made up for it, and you certainly won’t do it again. Screw-ups are just mistakes, one-off blips. As long as you have acknowledged the mistake and apologized, you just need to move on from these.

Getting a speeding ticket because you are late for work could be classified as a weakness. Perhaps you are often late for work because you find it difficult to get out of bed. This is a personal weakness, and you should accept this, taking steps to avoid the same situation arising again. This could involve having your partner wake you, or putting your alarm clock on the other side of the room so you are forced to get up to turn it off.

Lastly, missing a deadline at work is a mistake that you simply should not have made. However, you can identify why you missed the deadline, taking this as an opportunity for growth and coming up with strategies as to how you can avoid making similar mistakes in the future: opportunities for growth are mistakes that you can learn from.

When we reframe “failures,” they lose their power over us. Get into the habit of reframing on a monthly basis, identifying opportunities for learning and improvement. Everyone fails, but it does not mean that you have come to the end of the line with your life design: life design is an ongoing process, which you will be engaged in until the day you die.

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