What would you do if you couldn’t…succeed?

The old saying goes What would you do if you couldn’t fail?

It’s a fine enough question, asking people to dream a little a bigger. Maybe it inspires people to face their fears, or suspend disbelief for long enough to see that something is possible.

But I’ll ask you this: What would you do if you couldn’t succeed? 

Most of us (people who read self-development blogs) don’t struggle with miniature dreams. Our pitfall comes when we dream too big. When when daydream too much. When we see our dreams so clearly that we don’t really have to achieve them at all. 

I was knocked off my feet last night when I read this idea from Cole Schafer (your favorite blogger’s favorite blogger). He published a piece called Why I Expect To Lose In Everything I Do. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. 

So, let’s kick this one around for moment. What would you do if you couldn’t succeed? What would you do if you were destined for mediocrity your entire life? What would you do if your business never blew up, your art never gained an audience, your career never panned out? What would you do if the best you could do was scrape together a lower-middle-class living? 

The question What would you do if you couldn’t fail is almost impossible to answer. If I couldn’t fail? Well, I’d be batting .1000 with 550 home runs this season for the San Francisco Giants. I’d be interviewing celebrities on The Tonight Show. I’d be vlogging my life in the Hollywood hills, slinging a metric ton of merch. But the question What would you do if you couldn’t succeed brings us much closer to what we need to be doing. Because you won’t succeed. At least not at first. In order to attain the success you strive for, you’ll fail a thousand times before you get there. To get through those failures, you need to fall in love with the process. And even if you don’t ever succeed, if you love the process, you’ll live a life you really enjoy. 

I emailed Cole Schafer last night thanking him for this idea. He responded with a commission. “Keep going, man. Keep going,” he said. “And, remind yourself that the process is the gift.”

P.S. Go read Cole’s piece here.