Inversion is a powerful tool when you want to solve a problem or exploit an opportunity. Consider what you are trying to accomplish and think about what it would take to setup the conditions of failure. Much success can come through side stepping mistakes that are obvious to those who engage in a little reflection.

As we close out 2023, some of you are likely putting the final polish on your 2024 goals. Hopefully, you already have some ideas about strategies to achieve them. In keeping with the principle of inversion, here are my top six ideas for how you can fail to achieve any of your goals and make youself (and the people around you) miserable in the process.

Indulge yourself

Each of us is susceptible to some vice or other. It's easy to find comfort in alcohol, unhealthy eating, binge watching, laying in bed until 10AM, sex, making snarky remarks about people who annoy you, and a host of other indulgences. Most of those, in the right circumstances and in moderation, are actually good things. Unfortunately, your brain does a poor job of doing a cost benefit analysis of the immediate dopamine hit from indulgence with the long term impacts to health, relationships, and productivity that come from over-indulgence.

Be envious

Charlie Munger famously said that envy is the only one of the seven deadly sins that isn't any fun. When you engage in envy, you waste your time and emotional energy on people who either don't care about you at all, or who would be pleased that you were spending your time envying them. It might be that they started the game of life on 3rd base, but it's quite possible that even if they did, there's something you could learn from them and apply to your own goals. Envy will make sure to keep you from ever looking for the positive lessons.

Make it all about you

If you want to be tedious to be around and ensure that no one around you wants to help you achieve your goals, make sure that you are as self-obsessed as possible. Be extremely calculating and political in all your relationships, making sure that you're always getting more out than you are putting in.

Procrastinate

Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow. Of course, people might notice if you simply don't start doing the things you've been talking about. If you want to fool them (and maybe even yourself), dress up your procrastination as studying and preparation. Just make sure that none of that results in any kind of tangible output that moves your plan forward.

Ignore Quality

A key tenet of the Toyota Production System is that you don't pass defects on to other work centers. If you're trying to fail in 2024, you're going to have to toss that tenet out the window. If, through some accident, you stopped procrastinating and produced something, make sure that it's rushed and slipshod. If you can hand it off to someone else, and make it their problem to fix, even better. In no time at all, you'll have stopped people from asking you to help them with anything or to rely on you in any way at all.

Make excuses

While the previous tips should have set you firmly on the road to failure, there's a risk that you, or someone who cares about you, might notice these patterns and try to put you back on a healthier path. The best way to put an end to that is to preempt it. Make sure that you have your list of excuses ready. You'll be extra annoying to people around you if dress up your bad behaviors as something laudable like needing some self care, or not knowing what others expected of you, or doing the best you possible could under tight deadlines. If you want to fail like a pro, don't wait for someone to point your failures. There's no reason you can't start every conversation with a list of excuses before they start offering you some kind of advice.