So this isn't quite done, and its late here so I don't quite trust my judgements about writing at this hour. I've never done a top-level post before, so I wanted to get some feedback first.

Failure isn’t that Bad

You’ve probably read about how to properly turn information into beliefs, and how to squeeze every last bit from your data. What seems not to have received as much attention is the importance of just going and getting data.

For precise and well-defined fields and problems, clear thinking and reasoning will get you really far. Mathematics departments don’t use that much equipment, and they’ve been going fine for hundreds of years.

For more mundane day-to-day concerns, getting data is probably more important than being rational. Where Rationality helps you get an accurate model of the world based on the data, Data gets you well, data. And practice. Your human brain can’t rederive social rules in a vacuum, no matter how smart you are, so you have to go out and get information about it. But rationality with data is far better than either alone.

Sometimes you have to get your data by actually trying. Some things are just hard to explain in words and video. Your brain has all of this built in hardware for detecting and interpreting emotions and body language, but people are comparatively terrible at talking about it. This makes learning about different social or mood-variant things online difficult. Motions are also hard to teach online. I can kind of visualize how to do a front handspring, but I really can’t transmit what it feels like to someone else without just asking them to try it. Note: I’m not saying that asking others is useless, but I am saying that its mostly only effective as a complement to actually trying.

Practice is important. As any akrasiatic or novice would know, knowledge in a field or domain doesn’t translate directly to success in it. Like muscle memory, you need practice in order to get your brain to incorporate what you know to the point that you can use it automatically. Consciously thinking about what you’re doing while you’re doing it tends to cause lag and awkwardness, and in some fields (like conversation or physical activities) is a pretty large detriment.

I had/have the problem of hesitating on acting until I’m sure that whatever I’m considering attempting is going to be successful. I’m afraid of it not working, and am willing to do anything short of doing it in order to ensure success.

This kind of hesitation though, is pretty useless. In many cases failure to act is about the same as your action failing. It avoids doing things that you regret, but it also avoids doing things in general. And if your hesitation doesn’t result in a well thought-out plan to guarantee success in the future, then not only do you fail it that one time you hesitate, you’re not going to make progress on succeeding in the future.

Sometimes failure is actually a problem (like you’ll break something if you try extreme parkour tricks and fail), but I feel like in most instances I grossly overestimate how bad failing is. To combat this I do a few things:

• Consider a failure to act as an implicit failure. Not trying is as bad as trying and failing, except for whatever costs a failed attempt incur.
• Not regret failing. As long as I learn from my mistakes then making them results in a net gain. In the long term having failed at something and learning what to do is better than not attempting it.
• Attempt to minimize the cost of a failed attempt. I hesitate a lot with social things. If I fail with a stranger and never see them again, it’s not that big of a deal. They might be annoyed, but as long as I didn’t do something super horrible to them then they’re probably going to forget about it.

So long story short, try things out. Improvement is hard unless you do, and failure seriously isn’t that bad.