I Failed. Here Are 5 Benefits of Failure I Found.

I used to think someone would discover me. Boy was I wrong.

I thought some manager or record label person would insist on working with me. That, I thought, is when my music career will take off.

I had this mindset for 10 years before I realized I was on the wrong path.

But now, I’ve come to learn that being a DIY musician is truly DIY. 

And I see that decade as a failure. But I’ve also learned about the benefits of failure because of it. 

I’ll explain what I mean by that and how all of us can start learning from failure.

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What Do I Mean by Failure?

Failing can mean different things to different people. So let’s define it. 

What I mean by “failure” is this: trying something that doesn’t work out the way you planned.

I do not mean “giving up” or “quitting.”

Success and failure are both subjective. But for this post, failure simply means something didn’t go the way you wanted it to.

Should You Try To Fail?

Obviously, I’m not going to encourage you to purposefully fail. 

But I do think, as musicians, we should all do things because we could fail.

If I only do the things that have little to no risk of failure, can those things ever be truly successful?

Success and failure are part of the yin and yang of the music industry. We don’t know what one is without the other.

Failure is a good thing because it shows us what success looks like.

So don’t try to fail. But try to do things that could fail. 

Because when you reach your success, you know you’ve overcome failure to get there.

In fact, the threat of failure and the promise of success drive you to where you want to be. 

The 5 Benefits of Failure

When it comes to failure, five lessons jump out to me. Five things we can learn from failure as musicians. 

Failure shows you what NOT to do

Maybe you realized the path you were taking isn’t the right path. That’s a win.

You’ll no longer waste time and effort going the wrong way.

Maybe you have the right goals, but your methods for getting there were off. That’s also a win.

Now you know what methods to avoid going forward.

Knowing what not to do — what to say “no” to — helps you find focus.

Failure teaches you how to stay humble

Open yourself to failure. Expect things to not go your way. 

Because when something doesn’t go as planned, you have two options:

1. Grit your teeth and try to force something that won’t happen, or…
2. Be humble, admit that you didn’t have it all together, and learn how to do it better

Choose option 2.

Failing helps you realize failure isn’t that bad 

Fear of failure is a bigger obstacle for many musicians than actual failure.

Because once you realize a project or goal has failed, you realize the experience of failure is not as bad as you assumed. 

And the more you fail and readjust, the more likely you are to do things with a higher risk of failure.

And the bigger your success could be.

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.”

J.K. Rowling during a speech at Harvard

Failure can spark creativity

Failure is frustrating. So…

Tap into that frustration and write a song about it. Produce some music that evokes your emotions. Journal about it. 

Don’t let that frustration go to waste. Turn it into creativity.

Some of the best creative ideas are buried at rock-bottom.

Failure makes you a better teacher

Good teachers are full of lessons. Good teachers willingly share their knowledge — however large or small.

They want others to benefit from what they’ve learned. 

And because you’re humble and you’re ready to learn from failure, failure will make you a better teacher. 

You’ll help yourself and others.

Final Thoughts

The benefits of failure are clear. 

However, it’s still a good idea to minimize the likelihood of failing.

It will happen regardless, even if it’s a small failure. And you obviously don’t want to be failing all the time.

You need mostly success in your music career.

The first step I recommend you take is to plan out your long-term career, set goals to get you there, and create productive tasks you can do on a daily basis.

I use The One-Thing-A-Day Worksheet for this (FREE download below).

And it has completely changed everything for me. Seriously.

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