From a young age, we are conditioned to avoid failure. From young students stressing over their tests, to people overstressing how to handle even the smallest challenge, we learn this behavior when we are young. Problem is, if you never increase your rate of failure you will never see the success you want.

We are born free. Free from the opinions of others and free from binding ourselves to those opinions. We are told from a young age to fit in or be cast out.

Of the many things we tell our young, one of the most prevalent messages we send is to fear failure. Just look at how parents these days handle their children when the child makes a mistake.

In order to see the life you want for yourself, you must increase your rate of failure. This young-age conditioning deprives many of life's greatest teachers. Here are four reasons to fail more.

1. Rate of failure = rate of learning

Do you know why school struggles to have kids remember things? It has to do with why you still remember to not touch a hot stove. Modern schooling doesn't allow kids to learn from their failures, which is why so many children forget what they learn in school.

We are conditioned to fear failure as kids in school. We are told that if we don't get good grades, mom and dad won't be happy with us.

So we internalize this to mean that making mistakes is bad and should be avoided at all costs. Even worse, when we do make mistakes we don't want to admit them because of this conditioning.

However, failure teaches you the lesson so much faster and more thoroughly than anything else could.

To truly grasp a lesson, you must have an understanding of it. You cannot gain true understanding without experience.

Going back to the example of a hot stove, the kid gains the understanding to not touch the stove by touching it. The hot stove causes pain, which we want to avoid when possible.

This creates a cascading effect in terms of understanding. Instead of only avoiding hot stoves, you now become cautious about hot objects in general.

In order to find success, you need to understand how to get it. Nothing brings that understanding faster than failure.

2. Confidence Builder

Yes, failing builds confidence. Yes, it makes sense. No, you don't need to be a masochist for this to work. 

Failing builds confidence by way of you not dying. 

Our conditioning from our younger years conditions us to believe that we'll die if we fail. Whether that be a physical death or social death is beside the point.

Regardless of your walk of life, you don't want to die, that's just human nature. So naturally, we avoid that which we believe will kill us.

By failing more, however, you show yourself that there isn't anything to really fear from failing. Eventually, the belief that you'll die from failing fades.

As that belief gets weaker, you start to realize more and more that you can make mistakes without the debilitating consequences you once believed they had.

And once you can see that the consequences were mainly only in your head, you unlock the confidence to behave more freely.

By failing more and not dying, you show yourself more and more that you were only holding yourself back with those limiting beliefs.

3. Finding what works for you

One big thing I see in a lot of my younger brother's male friends is that they don't really stand out from each other. Sure, they have their individual differences, but they don't really set themselves apart. They're all just high school boys following the same programming. 

One of the big reasons to fail more is to find what works for you. No matter what area you fail in, you will find what works best for you faster by failing.

Take dating as an example. From the stories my younger brother has told me, all the guys in his grade follow the same cookie-cutter doormat build-a-better-beta formula.

They express interest in girls, and they want to have a girlfriend. However, all of them are scared to make moves out of fear of rejection.

Of course, this fear is understandable and natural. They've been conditioned to fear failure after all, as well as to fear upsetting girls.

That being said, they never venture out of the box they've been placed in. They never discover who they are, and as a result, they won't get the results they want because they don't know who they are.

By failing more, you find what works for you because you find yourself amidst the chaos. 

Knowing who you are means you know what your own style is. Knowing your own style makes it infinitely easier to get what you want. And getting what you want is the meaning of success.

By exposing yourself to failure, you get closer and closer to discovering who you are and what works best for you on your journey.

4. The lesson will just keep coming back

The more you fail, the more you're doing in life. This much is simple to understand. What many don't understand about failure is that the more you fail, the more life you're living. And the more life you're living, the faster you'll learn the lesson.

I've come to understand it this way: life will keep smacking you with the lesson you need to learn until you learn it. And each time it has to repeat it, it does it harder than the last time.

The reason why so many guys struggle with life in general is that they aren't learning the important lessons fast enough.

They get stuck in their conditioning, they behave a certain way, they avoid challenges when they can, and as a result, they grow up to be the man they could be when it's too late. Too much life has passed for them to enjoy who they've become.

When you learn to embrace failure rather than fear it, you learn important life lessons so much faster.

Don't fear the reaper

Contrary to what you may think, there isn't much to fear about failure. The grim reaper won't take you early because of a hundred mistakes meant to teach you something.

In this life, you get to choose the type of pain you experience: the pain of discipline and failure or the pain of regret. Make your choice wisely.

- Karl