Learning from Failing Fast

“Fail fast” is a phrase that gets tossed around often—and for good reason. In many situations, it makes total sense. A big part of the problem with failure is that it makes us afraid to try new things. But here’s the thing: even if there’s only a 0.1% chance that trying something new could teach you something valuable, not trying at all gives you a 0% chance. So, letting fear of failure hold you back actually gets in the way of long-term success. Embracing failure as a learning opportunity is not just about accepting the possibility of failure, but about empowering yourself to grow and succeed.

Getting over that fear isn’t a walk in the park, but it is doable. This approach can actually help you get comfortable with the idea of failure. You’ll start to see that failure isn’t the end of the world—in fact, it can open up opportunities you might not have noticed otherwise. And the “fast” part of failing fast? That helps keep the cost of taking risks low.

But here’s the catch: just failing isn’t enough—you’ve got to learn from it to boost your chances of success next time. That’s where “failing fast” can sometimes backfire. It’s easy to fall into a trap of thinking, “Oh, it’s just another fail, no big deal,” without taking the time to dig into what went wrong and what could be done better. So, while failing fast can be great, make sure you’re not just glossing over the lessons each failure has to offer. Learning from failure is not a choice; it’s a necessity to progress and succeed.

Think about software development as an example. No process is perfect; every team needs to tweak things to find what works best for them. But it’s easy to freak out over the first hiccup. Like, “Oh no, we missed this bug! This process is terrible; let’s scrap it all and start over.”
The problem with this kind of reaction is that it skips the critical step of analysing what went wrong. Maybe starting over is the right call, but perhaps just a small adjustment would do the trick. Jumping to conclusions won’t help here. You need to dig into what happened and figure out why it happened; otherwise, you’re not getting anything out of
that failure. “Failing fast” can end up just being “failing for no reason” instead of “failing to improve.”

There’s also the fact that you’ve got endless options to try. Imagine writing a blog post and searching for the perfect way to say something. There are hundreds of thousands of words to pick from, and when you start combining them into phrases or sentences, the possibilities grow exponentially. But not every combination is helpful. Experience with language narrows down the options, and reviewing what’s worked (or not worked) before helps you zero in on what might be right.

Without that kind of analysis, you’re just throwing random words on a page, hoping one of them sticks. That’s not a recipe for success; that’s just failing for the sake of failing.

So, what do you think? Have you found “failing fast” helpful, or is it overhyped? I’d love to hear your thoughts, stories, or any tips you have on turning failure into a win. Send us an email or comment on social media — let’s keep the conversation going!

Article by Dave