Already-successful entrepreneurs were far more likely to succeed again: their success rate for later venture-backed companies was 34 percent. But entrepreneurs whose companies had been liquidated or gone bankrupt had almost the same follow-on success rate as the first-timers: 23 percent.

Failing can teach you an important lesson when you’re running a business, but success is a better teacher (and not to mention more fun). Failing teaches you only what not to do, what to avoid. If you study your successes and come across the same situation, you’ll know exactly what to do.

“Fail early and fail often” is a phrase I often hear repeated and one I’ve come to dislike. Failing causes pain and the human condition is to avoid pain in the future. When you burn your hand, you learn not to touch the hot fire. You don’t start out building the fire by saying “okay, I’m going to touch the hot fire so I learn what not to do in the future.” You do your best to avoid the fire altogether.

Failing is different than making mistakes. No business journey will be mistake-free. You learn from your mistakes and constantly readjust. I don’t consider those little errors failures.

When I run a business, I keep my eye on the prize (profitability). If I worried about the odds against me or every possible reason I could fail, I’d never get anything done.

So how has it worked for me? It’s finals time and I’m not stressed out at all, which can seem impossible when you’re up against 5 or 6 tests that are collectively worth 30% of your entire grade. The pressure can be all-consuming, especially when Red Bull is pumping through your veins and you’re stuck at the library at 1am. What I’ve done by typing up my notes is invest in studying ahead of time rather than cramming the night before my test. It helps me perform better in the class and remember more useful info from the class.

Don’t believe me? Try to remember what you crammed for your first semester at college. I definitely don’t remember anything because my brain was on overload. I remembered it for the test and immediately pushed it out.

Work on your passion every day

Spaced presentation is also something I’m experimenting with for making myself a better designer. Every day, I’m reading two of the 100 design principles from a book called Universal Design Principles. It only takes about 15 minutes so I can easily fit it into my schedule.

I even set myself a reminder in my todo list program, Things, so I never forget.

I’m at principle #50 right now and I’m going to stop after I’ve gone through the book two or three times. I don’t want to read these principles and forget it. These are something I want to subconsciously think about when designing so I’m working on making that happen a little bit every day so my brain doesn’t get overloaded.

What can you do?

What is one thing you’d like to know more about? It could be anything; design, writing, jewelry making, wood carving or your required bio stats class. Try working on it for 20 minutes every single day (or maybe 45 minutes three times a week). Read an article or do a few practice problems. You’re not only going over the material repetitively, but you’re doing it in such a way that your brain can handle all of the information without overflowing with knowledge.