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Applying the 0% Chance Mindset
 

A practical case from a reader

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The 0% Chance Mindset is more than a radical concept - it can be a practical compass for navigating our way out of the Cult of Achievement.
 

We all carry our list of "0% Chance" tasks - ambitions we’ve shelved because we convinced ourselves that the odds of success are near zero. For me, one of those is learning a musical instrument. I’ve always wanted to play well enough to perform for and with friends, yet my own perception of my potential is near zero.
 

Usually that would be the end of the story.  But using the Fail on Purpose methodology, I realised the "downside" is negligible - just a bit of time and the cost of the lessons and instrument. The upside, however, can be joyously transformative:
 

  • Inoculation: If I fail, it becomes a pre-emptive rewiring mechanism. Because I expect to fail, the pressure evaporates. The attempt becomes playful, the effort feels light, and the mind stays calm. I can actually have fun in the process of failing.
     

  • Momentum: If I somehow succeed, I haven’t just opened a portal to a new world of joy; I have shattered my own conditioned beliefs. That success empowers me to step off the tracks and embrace even larger "0% chance" challenges in the future.
     

The journey to living on purpose begins the moment we choose to embrace failure.

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Desire starts the movement.
The journey does the sorting.
The destination arrives when it’s earned.

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This is the cornerstone of the 0% Chance Mindset.

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​Desire

A felt pull, not a plan.

  • Feeling restless in a successful job without knowing what you want instead

  • Curiosity about a topic you “don’t need” for your career

  • Wanting to write, hike, volunteer, build, learn — without a reason that justifies it

  • A quiet sense of “something here matters to me” before you can explain why

Desire is pre-rational. It doesn’t come with a roadmap.

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Motion

Acting before certainty.

  • Signing up for a course without knowing where it leads

  • Booking a trip without a clear outcome

  • Starting a side project with no business model

  • Saying yes to a conversation, a collaboration, a walk, a question

 

Motion is not commitment.
It is simply movement instead of paralysis.

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Journey

Feedback replaces planning.

  • Discovering what you like and dislike only after trying

  • Realising your assumptions were wrong

  • Meeting people who reshape your thinking

  • Failing, adjusting, wandering, doubling back

 

The journey is where:

  • fear loosens

  • skills emerge

  • identity softens

 

You couldn’t have thought your way here.
You had to walk.

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Way

Clarity appears after action.

  • Patterns begin to repeat

  • Certain paths feel lighter, others heavier

  • You learn what drains you vs what energises you

  • Decisions become simpler, not because life is simpler.

  • But because you are clearer

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The “way” is not chosen upfront.
It is revealed through lived contrast.

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Destination

Recognised, not engineered.

  • You suddenly realise: “I’m doing the thing I was searching for.”

  • The title, role, relationship, or form looks different than imagined

  • Others name what you’re doing before you do

  • It feels obvious only in hindsight

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The destination:

  • arrives late

  • looks sideways

  • cannot be forced

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And often — once reached — it quietly becomes the starting point for another desire.​

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In short

  • Desire starts the body

  • Motion frees the mind

  • Journey educates the self

  • Way clarifies direction

  • Destination emerges when control is released​​​​

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