Failure is essential for success

People tend to fear failure. And that fear of failure is often what prevents us from taking the first step towards fulfilling our higher purpose. It also frequently stops us in our tracks, causing us to abandon our higher purpose partway through the journey. Instead of fearing failure, embrace it. As uncomfortable as that is (especially for those of us who are “high-achievers”), truly successful people know that success is birthed out of failure, often many failures.

Reframing failure as something to be embraced does several things for our mindset. First, although we cannot always control the circumstances that lead to failures, we can control our response. We can ALWAYS control our response to everything in life. So, fail well. It’s OK to experience disappointment, frustration, and even anger about failures. Everyone gets stuck from time to time; that’s normal. That’s human. But don’t stay stuck. Look for the positives (what did I learn? What new opportunity does this present? What potential pitfalls did this help me avoid? Etc.) Fail with grace and peace, because failure is inevitable.

Second, consciously choosing to embrace failure helps remove the dread associated with failure. If we recognize that failure is going to happen but cannot prevent us from moving forward (big picture), then when it rears its ugly head, we can simply say, “I was expecting something like this to happen. What do I do about it?” We shift into solution-mode rather than dwelling on the problem at hand. I call this “failing forward”. Even if you have to backtrack a while, eventually you will find or forge a new path leading forward (of course this is all predicated on the fact that you are actually moving forward, intentionally, towards something important.)

Face it. We are all frequent failures. Everything we have ever learned was preceded by many failures. So, learn now to fail frequently, fail forward, and fail well.