How to Fail Towards Success
It’s better to have tried and failed, than to never have tried at all.
You may remember that quote more accurately as, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
No matter what we do in life, failure awaits each and every one of us. It is simply an aspect of life. Don’t believe me? I’ll provide a primal example.
A lion must hunt for food. Do you think the lion succeeds in catching his prey every time?
The lion is a very good hunter. But this is because he is driven by his hunger (literally) and he has seen what works and what does not over years of practice. In this way, the lion has honed his skills and found what makes him successful more often than not.
Despite all this, he will still hunt and he will still fail. But he is driven by hunger to continuously hone is hunt and succeed. Why?
For him, failure is not an option. His survival is on the line. Therefore concluding he is not a good hunter would bring his own life to a conclusion.
Failure is merely a conclusion, a decision to stop learning from mistakes, and to stop honing your craft.
How Do You Know You Have Failed?
You know that strange feeling? That feeling deep down that just nags at you. Something that isn’t sitting quite right.
I’m not talking about eating something that did not sit well in your stomach. But you may have “eaten” something that did not sit well with your soul.
Because your soul is responding, you can feel something is off. You have this innate knowledge of your capabilities and desire to accomplish your dreams. And the moment the decision is made to let that go, this nagging feeling sets in.
This is the feeling that lets you realize you have accepted failure by accepting a lesser state of existence. You may not realize it now or tomorrow or next week. However realizing years down the line will allow this nagging feeling to evolve into regret that can span a lifetime.
Because what is failure?
Failure is essentially a conclusion made in life that denies the nature of your essence. It denies the expression of your essence.
Redefine Failure
Now we can understand the feeling of true failure. The decision was made to give up. To stop trying again. To stop forging the path you were meant to create for yourself. And to simply bow to extenuating circumstances.
This leads to the denial of your core. A denial of what makes you truly live your life on this Earth.
Most people think of “failure” as a negative thing. But let’s think about this. We can learn from failure. And if we always have the willingness to learn from failure, it is only a mistake that has the ability to become our teacher.
Failure is a matter of perspective.
For example: Consider a person who smokes cigarettes. If one day he/she no longer picks up another cigarette for the rest of their lives, what do we say about that person?
They quit smoking. Good for them!
Do we say that they failed to smoke anymore? No. We might say instead that they failed to quit if they do pick up another cigarette in the future. But why is that the case?
Because we have all been educated on the health benefits of quitting as well as the ailments that can result from the activity. Not only that, but in our core, we also know what’s truly good and not good for us.
We do not want to simply survive. We want to live life!
And we all have a deep rooted knowledge, apart from the education of health campaigns, that smoking does not help us lead vibrant lives.
Therefore we say a person quit smoking as though it is an accomplishment. And it is! Because it was a decision to benefit the soul. And at the level of the soul, everyone feels the impact.
“Fall Forward”
Denzel Washington gave a beautiful commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania.
He spoke of failure and the idea of “falling forward”.
He explained that with the exception of his faith, he never understood the concept of falling back onto something as most well-intentioned people would advise us.
Mr. Washington is a wise man that has learned from other wise men and women.
He experimented in his life. Explored the outer limits of his potential. Learned from the mistakes he has made. And tried again and again and again until… Success!
Learning from Failure
So how do you become a success at life? By failing. By learning. And by trying again.
It is not a secret.
This is something we have intuitively known since birth.
A child does not think to him/herself, “Gee, I fell on my butt the last couple times I tried to walk. Maybe I’m just not meant to walk in this life.”
Absolutely ludicrous!
We would not settle for that! We would do everything possible to encourage our child to try again!
And so we must encourage our inner child not to give up in the face of failure. We have a mind to realize that failure is part of life. To accept it. And use it as a guide to move forward.
Conclusion
You have an internal drive.
Keep going! As far as you can, as much as you can. Just keep walking your walk.
If there is something in this world you really want to do, you are guaranteed to fail countless times until you have learned enough to succeed.
But magic does not happen at that point. You will still continue to fail. Because there will always be something more to learn.
Learn to be better than you are. That promotes personal growth and development.
Success is not defined by achievement as demonstrated by external factors. Success is defined by whether or not you are better than you were yesterday, an hour ago, or even a minute ago. Keep learning, keep improving, and forge your path forward.
