Fear of Failure Holding You Back? Here are 5 Surprising Ways Failure Can Actually Benefit Your Business

I find the word failure really strange.

I believe that the people who never failed never tried.

There have been moments in my life where I’ve tried, and “failed” — because I’d never done something before. Or set the bar too high for myself. Or juggling too many things. Or just wasn’t well-equipped to accomplish the task set before me — because it was new.

I’d try something, and fail, and feel depleted. Crippled by my fixed mindset and horrible inner dialogue: I’d wallow privately in shame for as long as I’d need. Then I’d try again.

But the next time I’d try that same task — whether it’s hosting an event, singing live at a gig, going on a great date, or starting a business from scratch — I’d realise that I’d have at least 1% more confidence. A tiny bit more wisdom. A little more insight. And a few more tricks up my sleeve to do a better job.

I look back at my fatalistic wallowing today and realise that the mistakes I’d made were just a part of the growth process. My previous failures are just proof that I’m trying. They have allowed me to refine my knowledge, deepen my experience, broaden my wisdom and build my resilience.

Failure has crippled me in the past. I always wished I could be stronger and more resilient. I saw my failure as a huge sign of weakness. Today, I’m learning that I am resilient. I am strong. Because I’ve gone out of my comfort zone to do the things I’d told myself I’d do. After failing, I’d feel depleted. But there was always something in me that would lead me to refuse to staying in that defeated place.

The fear of failure is very human. It’s very normal. Whether we allow it to cripple us or stop us from taking action really comes down to our mindset and core beliefs.

So many of us are afraid of failing, because we see it as final, or fatal. Life-defining. But it’s not. It doesn’t have to be. It’s only a very, very small step in our journey to growth, wisdom and success.

There are so many ways “failing” can benefit you in business. Here are a few:

1) failure can bring you the opportunity to Learn from your mistakes

When was the last time you made a mistake in your business?

I make mistakes on the regular, but I can think back to one big mistake, which I thought was a fatalistic back when I first attempted to start a creative arts studio in my early twenties. A mistake that had a detrimental effect on my business.

I remember starting my first business in 2017 with naive confidence and passion. I remember frantically drawing on the back of a napkin: the vision, mission and structure of my business plan. I was in bed, with my hair in a badass messy high bun. It was probably winter, so I was in some sort of Oodie-like sleeping bag thing. 

My naive confidence led me to take swift action. I reached out to the people I thought would see the potential in my idea. I was in Canberra at that time. It was a gold mine to start a business as the demographic was quite wealthy, and there wasn’t much competition.

So I built a team. I held a meeting to share the idea, and around 20 eager people showed up. I had friends who wanted to volunteer to set up the Administration systems and handle my accounts. 

I launched the business, and we grew quickly over 2 years. We held a stall at the community event. We held a few events ourselves. There were a lot of people who showed their support. 

But I had made a big mistake from the start. I made a mistake in my pricing structure. I was paying my staff way too much — the business was making gross profit, but no net profit. Though on the outside, things looked vibrant — the cash flow and balance sheets were showing a different story.

I could have made changes and continue running the business in the hopes to revive it, but my mental and emotional state wasn’t in a great place, so I decided to closed the business down after 2 years of operating.

When I started Music on Purpose and hired my first teachers, I learnt from my previous mistake and realised that cash-flow and net-profit were extremely important factors that would determine the longevity and health of my business. When it came to hiring teachers, I wanted to ensure that my staff receive a generous pay, but not at the expense of getting into liquidation.

What I thought was a fatalistic mistake back in my early twenties gave me the insight to be strategic and calculate when it comes to keeping my business healthy. It taught me the significance that finances have on a business which I was blind to previously.

This is one experience that taught me that “failing” isn’t the end of the story. Because if I make a mistake (which you have. And will continue to). But learn from my mistakes — then my failure has actually served you, and will serve my business for good.

If you learn from your failure, and use that knowledge to improve your business strategy, processes, and decision-making in the future - you haven’t failed. You’ve just been given the opportunity to make things better. More streamlined. Efficient. And healthy.

2) failing can give you the platform to Build your resilience

When something doesn’t turn out the way that you’d hoped and expected — it can be tough. The more hopeful you are, the more difficult it can be to deal with the remnants of failing.

Let me give you an example. I hired this guy soon after setting up my studio, and I was hopeful. He was young, charismatic and great with people. He had an awesome energy about him and I thought he’d be perfect to have on board. He understood my values, and the culture that I was building in my business.

The first few weeks with him onboard were great. Until he started showing up 15, 30, 60 minutes late. Consistently. He did a few no-shows too, and I only heard from him through clients who were left waiting for him to arrive at the studio.

I hired him through a referral, and did no background checks because I trusted the person who referred him. I had a lot of blind hope in this guy, but it really had an adverse affect on my business and peace of mind. He was kind, but his inconsistency, unreliability and poor time management was giving our clients a bad experience and my business a bad reputation too.

Each time an incident like this happened, I spoke with him and was kind to him over the phone, making sure he was okay. But his behaviour didn’t change. This went on for months. Looking back, I should have fired him sooner. It would have saved a lot of troubleshooting and stress.

It was difficult for me to deal with this situation because my inner-people pleaser struggled to have these rough conversations. So I put it off. That was a big mistake of mine. The sooner I fired him, the sooner it would have solved a lot of issues.

This failure of mine initially made me feel like I was a hopeless manager. “I should’ve sacked him earlier. I could’ve done something to avoid it happening” — these thoughts flooded my mind and I felt pretty down in the dumps. But putting things into perspective, one dud staff member was difficult to deal with, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I learnt how to bounce back.

I learnt that you need to be resilient in order to be in business in the long run, because there will always be challenges and we will 100% make mistakes along the way. Resilience isn’t just something that we feel, or are born with. It can be built, and it can only truly be built when we fail at something.

Our mental resilience and emotional strength can be shaped by and born from the setbacks we face and mistakes we make in business. Without failing, we’ll never receive the opportunity to become resilient (plus, if you never fail — you probably never tried).

3) Failure can encourage innovation and creative thinking

When things always work out — it can be easy to cruise in comfort. And though comfort feels nice, the reality of business is that if you’re not moving forward, you’re probably falling backwards. There will always be competitors, changes in the economy, industry and advances in technology. If you’re not adapting, developing and innovating, you’re probably going to be left behind.

I remember hearing an analogy of a frog sitting in a pot of boiling water — at first, the water is cold so the frog is just chilling in his little tub. As the water starts warming up, the little guy becomes accustomed to the temperature and doesn’t realise that he’s boiling alive until it’s too late.

This is a cute, but graphic analogy of how cruising and comfort can lead to your detriment.

Failure can have the opposite effect. If something doesn’t turn out the way you planned it to — you can either feel horrible about it and quit, or choose to do things differently.

With me, I often feel horrible when things don’t go well — then I think about quitting, and after a good chat and moment to reflect, I approach things differently.

Early this year, I introduced a new service which would bring in a completely different stream of income in my business, but didn’t feel confident in myself to put money, time and effort into marketing. I felt that I had a valuable service with a high ticket price compared to the average price point in the industry. I priced it high, making it limited spots, so that I’d attract clients who would see the value and want to pay a higher price for a higher quality experience.

I used our email marketing campaigns to get the word out there to our current clients (who were ideal clients for the service) — and announced it once at an event I held. But apart from that, I didn’t do much else. When it became closer to the launch date, we had 1 signup. And we needed at minimum of 5 sign ups on 5 days for the program to actually run.

I look back and see trails of self-sabotage. I put minimal effort in because as much as I believed in the value I was offering, I didn’t actually believe in my ability to strategically build an audience who would become leads, and paying clients.

A lot of my business growth and success came from word of mouth and referrals — that I didn’t really understand the art and science of marketing and sales.

I knew off the top of my head that there are clients who are willing to exchange their money for the value they’d receive, but being so used to people just emailing, texting and calling to work with me or be on my wait list — it felt really odd and vulnerable to put myself out there and receive very little interest.

I allowed my self-doubt to hold me back and told myself “See, no one wants this. It’s not going to work”. I created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But after talking to another friend in business who I asked for advice on whether I should cancel the idea, he gave me the slap of reality that I needed. “Chloe, you’re thinking like an employee. You’re literally doing the bare minimum. You need to give this everything you’ve got — and decide whether you need to cancel it. Only after you’ve given it your all.”

So in the span of a week, gave it my all. I put money into Google Ads. I created compelling copy that captured the heart and purpose behind the new service. I edited images and built a page on our website dedicated to converting leads into paying clients. I posted on different social media pages, created an emotive promotional video, set up a streamlined payment and admin process that would be easy for clients to navigate. I texted, emailed and called every single lead that came my way.

I also reached out to 2 incredibly loyal clients and asked if they’d come at no charge to say thank you, as I knew that they were the right fit, and that if we could have more people experience the program first hand who would love it — it would bring in future business. And it worked.

It all worked.

Having that conversation with my entrepreneurial friend pushed me to think outside the box. Because thinking outside the box is what entrepreneurs do. Feeling pushed against the wall, tempted to believe I was a failure — pushed me to innovate and think of multiple creative strategies to promote a new service an income stream in my business.

I learnt how to develop a growth mindset and believe that there is always potential to improve, strengthen and grow in my ability, wisdom and performance. And this led me to look for new, innovative, creative solutions to problems and explore alternative approaches I might not have done before.

4) failing can push you to Refine your goals

When you fail at something, it can yes. Not feel great. But it can also push you to reflect on the bigger picture of your business and ask important questions.

What do you want to build? What are your strategies? Why didn’t your previous strategy yield the results that you were aiming for?

Failure can help you to take a step back to reassess, refine and even redirect your goals if you need. As you take time to see the big picture again, and draw up the courage to honestly clarify what you truly want to achieve in your business — this will bring you fresh perspective.

By refining your goals, you’ll be able to focus your efforts and resources more effectively towards the big picture.

Without failure, you may never have this push to realign.

5) failure births humility

It’s not always a great feeling to be humbled. In fact, it almost never is. But humility is an incredible trait to have and hone as a business owner. When you’re humble, you don’t think of yourself as less. Rather, it can help you develop a realistic understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. This level of self-awareness, can improve your decision-making and leadership skills.

There you have it: 5 amazing reasons how failing can actually benefit your business.

But take note of this — the most important takeaway from this article is that your response to “failure” matters. How you choose to respond will always matter most.

What you do after you fail, fall short and make mistakes will determine whether you grow, innovate, reflect and thrive — or whether you blame, complain, victimise yourself and quit. The choice is yours.

Failure can be a blessing in disguise, or the worst thing that happened to you. You get to choose which story you want to tell.