Three Deliberate Failures a Year
Set a failure quota so you know you're aiming high enough
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Grant sets an explicit goal of having three projects fail each year. The mechanism is inversion: instead of measuring success by wins, he measures whether his reach exceeds his grasp. He never sets out to fail; he sets out to stretch so far that some attempts must miss. When a project crashes, rather than spiralling, he logs it against the quota — 'that checks off one of the failures for the year.' If the year ends with fewer than three failures, that is the warning sign that he played too safe and aimed too low. The quota converts failure from a threat to self-esteem into a leading indicator of sufficient ambition, breaking the perfectionistic feedback loop where you keep doing only what you're already good at and stop learning from trial and error.
Origin
Adam Grant's personal practice, shared on Modern Wisdom; he described tracking his own annual failure count (only two so far that year).
Core principles
- 01If nothing fails, your targets were too safe
- 02A failure quota reframes each flop as evidence of ambition
- 03You never try to fail — you try to stretch far enough that some misses are inevitable
- 04Expecting failure in advance makes it far easier to stomach
How to run it
- 1
Set the annual quota
Decide on a target number of failures for the year — Grant uses three. The number is a proxy for how far you're stretching, not a to-do list.
Pro tip Frame it out loud as a stretch goal, not a self-sabotage goal.
- 2
Aim high, don't engineer failure
Take on projects ambitious enough that the outcome is genuinely uncertain. You are not choosing projects designed to bomb; you are choosing ones where success isn't guaranteed.
Watch out Deliberately tanking something teaches you nothing — the failures must come from real reach.
- 3
Tally failures as they happen
When a project fails, count it against the quota instead of treating it as a verdict on your worth. 'That checks off one of the failures for this year.'
Pro tip Naming it aloud as a checked box drains its emotional charge.
- 4
Audit at year end
If you hit zero or one failures, treat that as a signal you weren't aiming high enough, and raise the difficulty of next year's bets.
Watch out Consistently hitting or exceeding every goal usually means you're under-reaching, not excelling.
In the wild
Grant told Chris he aims for three failures a year and had only managed two so far — joking he needed to 'step on the gas.' The point wasn't self-flagellation: a low failure count told him he hadn't stretched far enough. When a project did crash, he could file it as one of the year's expected failures rather than a personal indictment, which made the sting far more bearable.
→ Reframes each flop as evidence of ambition rather than inadequacy.
Common mistakes
Trying to fail on purpose
The method only works when failures are a byproduct of genuine reach. Engineering a bomb produces no learning and no signal about your ambition.
Treating a low failure count as success
Zero failures feels like winning but usually means your goals were too easy — the quota is a stretch gauge, not a scoreboard to max out at zero.
Is it for you?
Best for
Established performers who have stopped taking risks and default to their greatest hits.
Not ideal for
Beginners who still need early wins to build confidence and belief they can improve.
From the transcript
“I actually have a goal of having three things fail every year”
“if I don't have three projects fail it means that I'm not aiming high enough and I'm not stretching myself far enough”
From the episode
How To Overcome Your Fear Of Failure & Unlock Your Potential - Adam Grant - #885
Adam Grant