You aren’t going to succeed every time you try something new. While most of us realize this logically, that doesn’t mean we take this truth to heart. When we’ve tried really hard to try to get something in our lives, we want to succeed – and when we don’t, it’s disastrous to our self worth and our confidence. But does it have to be? Failure doesn’t have to be a negative time at all when you realize the value of falling down once in a while.
Here’s the truth: failure doesn’t mean that you haven’t succeeded. It just means that you haven’t gotten to where you wanted to go…yet. Even if you’re the one that has stood in your own way, failure means that you were going in the wrong direction. And that now you have the opportunity to try a different route.
For a moment, think about what happened right before you decided that you had failed. What were you doing and what did you realize was the better choice? That ‘right’ choice is still there and it’s still available for you to take it. And now that you know that the initial choice wasn’t correct, you can go back to your plan knowing that you will succeed this time.
Look at failure as something to celebrate, not something to avoid. You are doing to fail, so why not embrace it as a second chance to do things better this time? Take a few moments to figure out what went wrong, what you can do and then start your new plan. Even if you have to start over, things are going to progress more quickly than they did the first time.
Failure IS an option, contradictory to what motivational posters tell you. If you never failed, after all, you’d never know what success was.
Have a most outstanding day
Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 – 2008
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
If we recognise the lessons to be learned form failure, then this failure brings us closer to where we want to be. It helps to teach us how far we are from where we want to end up. In theory, then all we need to do then is to continually adjust to get where we want to go.
Take for example, Michael Jordan. He admits to having missed more than 9,000 shots in his career, having lost almost 300 games. And of the 26 times he had been trusted to take the game winning shot he missed. But he didn’t see that as reason to give up. Rather, he saw that it was his willingness to repeatedly fail which made him succeed. Talk about a champion mindset!
I think that willingness to fail is itself an admirable quality and a measure of success. As Winston Churchill said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
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Hi Sean,
I do think failure is a given. No-one succeeds perfectly each and every time. I think when we accept that failure is really just a stepping stone to success we won’t be so afraid of it.
The lessons we learn when we fail can be painful but it’s our attitude that will determine how long the pain has to last. I think it’s important to analyze what went wrong, learn the lesson that’s there to be learned and then get up and keep moving forward. We can’t allow the pain of the failure to paralyze us.
For me, I am learning that failure is going to happen no matter how hard I try to get things right. I’ve learned that despite my best intentions, sometimes, I still fail. Now when that happens, I’m no longer devastated. It’s easier to start over and try again.
Failure is not a result. It is just one step in the ever repeating feedback loop of constant improvement. We set goals, define strategies, implement processes, take action, and analyse the results. If the result isn’t meeting the goal, we redifine the strategies and processes, and take further action. Failure doesn’t occur until we break the cycle and give up.
Success is constantly improving to be your best
As long as you are alive you have to experience something. How you respond to these experiences determines quality of life. Tony Robbins tells of someone who felt like a failure because he was only earning $1.7 million a year instead of $2.3 million. So I choose to be at least OK with my experience of life. That means that if others perceive me as failing then I have probably descended to a state of OK in my own mind. Everything else, therefore, is a bonus.
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