Failure

What is your first thought, or reaction, when you hear the word failure?

Do you cringe?

Do you get uncomfortable?

Maybe you think, “Not Me!”

One way or another, our reaction we have learned when we think of the word failure is one of wanting distance from the area.  We learn to fear failure.  We associate shame with the concept. We reward success and look down on failure. 

It’s a good thing that we did not know about all the negative thoughts behind failure when we first started out on our journey through life. Imagine a child learning how to walk. getting up, falling down, and then quits because of failure, or being shamed for failing. We would be a society of crawlers. 

Our natural instincts are to learn through failure to get to our success.  Later in life, we learn the opposite. We learn that failure is bad.  We then attempt to avoid failure at any cost.  Avoiding failure has a negative affect on our lives. On one hand, we do not attempt areas we are not familiar with and so we limit ourselves. On the other hand, we stay in situations on the brink of failure in order not to fail. 

When we live in the brink of failure, we stay in failed situations that drain our lives, causing it to get worse and worse.  We stay in businesses until every resource we have is expired. Then when we fail we are in the worst financial situation we can be.  We stay in unhealthy relationships, causing us more and more unhappiness.  There are endless examples and all are bad. It’s bad when we refuse to fail and live in a failed situation that only gets worse and worse.

When we avoid failure, we don’t meet that potential life partner, we don’t get that job, we don’t get that degree.  True, we didn’t fail, but we never lived up to our real potential. 

We have to teach ourselves to get back our natural instincts that we were born with. We can relearn no fear of failing so that we can move our lives in the best direction possible. In fact, we have to embrace failure as part of the process, to realize success and fulfillment in our lives.

I find that the people who have failed the most are ones who become extremely successful.  You might be familiar with two famous baseball players, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.  Each in their day held the record for most homeruns and most strikeouts.  The point being that in order to hit a homerun, you have to be willing to strikeout.  You can’t let the fact that you had a strikeout last time or even the last few times at bat influence how you think as you approach coming to the plate again.  If you do, you will approach life in fear and be convinced that you will strikeout again. Then, you will.

Embrace your failures and move on.  It is liberating and frees you to move on with your life.  Failures are a way to learn, a way to grow and simply put, a natural part of life.  I always tell people that the actual word from the dictionary “failure” should be eliminated, because there are no failures. You cannot be a failure. You can only have failed.  The reason is that you have not lived the next moment of your life.  You only have failed a moment in your life you already lived.  Now that moment is over, and it is up to you to learn from it and grow towards your success. 

Attempt failure. Don’t stay in failed situations in order not to fail. So start failing your way to success today. Learn and grow to create the life you want.

Wishing you success at failing…

Devlyn Steele