It often feels like everything is so serious — that if you make one mistake, it will all end in disaster. But really everything you do is just a test: an experiment to “see what happens”.
I learned how to feel good in spite of failure when I adopted the “let’s see what happens” mentality. Now, whenever I want to try something new that has an uncertain chance of success, I tell myself it’s an experiment. I assume that whatever I invest in it, I invest it to gather data, and not necessarily to get a return.
For example, I started investing in video courses for my business. In the end, it was a spectacular failure, but I wasn’t particularly worried about it because my experiment was still a success: it proved that my business idea wasn’t a good one. I also learned a lot working on this goal, and that alone was worth it. I’m not sure if I would have taken action if I had told myself that this endeavor absolutely must deliver a positive return.
You can apply the same mentality to every other goal. For example, if you’re afraid that you’ll fail to develop a habit of getting up early, consider it a 30-day experiment to see how waking up early will make you feel and whether you’ll be more productive. When you think of it this way, you ensure from the get-go that no matter how your experiment goes, it’s a success. After all, you aren’t trying to make a permanent change: you only want to test a hypothesis.
Usually, if the experiment goes well, it leads to a permanent change anyway, and that’s the purpose of adopting this different mindset: you’re breaking through the initial resistance by lowering your expectations, and you consequently eliminate the fear of failure.
Maximum Mindset is an independent writing and digital publishing project focused on clearer thinking, stronger discipline, confidence, and meaningful personal change.