Assignment 27A - Reading Reflection No. 3

For this assignment, I read How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams...

• There was a lot to sort through for this book. But my main takeaway from it is that there several things that you need to change about yourself if you're looking for success, and that the good thing about failure is that it reveals these things to us. The book itself has a variety of what it would call "insights" and "truths." It offers said truths and insights in a way where it focuses on what you need to change in your daily life.

• This book was yet more material which says that failure is a necessity and that one should look forward to the lessons which it has to teach. At this point, I have already realized that a lot of the focus of this class and its teachings are about making you realize that it's okay to fail, and I would like to think that I've received the message. 

• The book says that systems promote success more than goals do, and its a message that I remember hearing in the last book that I read. The theory is that when you set goals, you're in a state of perpetual failure until you achieve said goal. Meanwhile, when you refine and optimize a system, you modify and simplify your behaviors to increase your odds of success. This makes it so that attaining success is a process rather than a goal, and you can be less stressed about it because you are constantly seeing changes and results that come about because of those changes.

• My biggest "aha" moment came when Adams stated that "we fake it until it becomes real." This is a message that I scarcely hear and one of the few times that I remember hearing it is in relation to this one song so this does come at a surprise. I always looked down on the whole "fake it till you make it" mindset, but this book made me realized that there really is no harm in it and that psychology itself would show you that it's a good idea.