I failed 15+ times in business and life (yet no reason to be depressed)

All fuck-ups and failures in my life. Not to depress you but to encourage those who bought into the belief that failing is shameful and to be avoided. I once did, too. Here’s the (long) list after 34 years of life experience:

1. No sports career (esp. soccer). I had talent though.
2. No singing career. A children’s dream of mine inspired by watching Dutch Marijke Amado’s „Mini Playback Show“.
3. Failed in media design. I never got accepted for a media design apprenticeship which is why instead I was trained as a salesman (finished best in class) and studied Int’l Media & Computing after. Gave me some satisfaction!
4. Failed 4x in serious relationships with a German, Polish, Kazakh and Colombian (longest lasted 2,5 years).
5. Several friendships.
6. Project listing photography events in Berlin. (lasted 3,5 years)
7. Cooperation with Berlin-based design agency. (lasted 3 years)
8. Startup with ex-girlfriend (lasted 3 years)
9. App both for Android and web (1,5 years) that even had to pay back 50 % although I had the UI design done
10. Two online shops (client work) never went online despite months of work
11. Collaboration with storytelling agency ended in the agency going down due to agency-internal communication issues. I revealed the issues, didn’t cause them. Ironically, it was my last and probably best job as a designer in those 8 years designing.
12. Bought several courses worth $ 5,000+ and never applied the knowledge. A reminder to learn by doing and learn to learn by figuring it out yourself in the first place.
13. Daily motivational series on Instagram (lasted 6 months) though I enjoyed doing it, only at some point I didn’t how to leverage everything I said there.
14. Thought I would want to get into copywriting as a client service but lost interest (paid $ 1,000+ for courses)
15. Thought my path is client work working in a physical space but actually it’s building products while traveling slowly, meeting people (especially locals) and sharing what I know.
16. I never fully accepted failure #1 which made think how I could apply my sportsman attitude to other areas of life. Not that easy. And it often meant that I became impatient doing small tedious tasks that made me lose interest in the project - especially sitting in front of the computer when I felt I wanted to move my body. The problem was: I neglected that uncomfortable tasks while building are necessary to ship something shiny eventually. So, my solution to this problem is usually to take a walk (30–60 minutes) or doing sports.
17. Didn’t use my potencial because I didn’t how to apply or direct it well
18. Didn’t use energy because I didn’t how to apply or direct it well
19. Do overthink and overanalyze (being too theoretic), as a consequence I procrastinate, don’t get done what I wanted and disappoint myself - which is the worst when I’m my worst judge. I was afraid to either lose my time or fail without receiving recognition (praise) for my doing - see the introductory paragraph above.
20. Am super lazy when I don’t know exactly what to do or am confused about what to do (analysis paralysis).
21. Lack of focus and concentration. Contrastring that, see here a phase when I had focus.

Having written down all the things I failed at I’m feeling better. I know it’s personal but I hope you can get something out of it.

You can join my free email course „Story Creation Masterclass“ now and pre-order my book PARADISE soon.

served by naii.io