Failure

2016 was the first year in many that I did not complete many of the goals that I had set for myself and I considered that a failure.  However, as I started to ponder my failure in not completing the goals I had set for myself, it gave me time to reflect, and this is what I found...

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

You know the feeling. It is that gut-sinking, I am-an-idiot, I will-never-amount-to-anything feeling and it is awful. There is no getting around it, but failure does not have to crush us. In fact, it can be an asset to us if we will let it.

One of the strongest indicators of how failure impacts us long-term is how we respond right after it takes place. Research shows the key response to know if a person's failure will lead to further tragedy or turn to success is simply this: Do they own the failure? In other words, when we respond by saying, “I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. This was my fault. I see where things went wrong,” that sort of thing, failure acts like one of life’s best teachers. We learn from our mistakes and move on. When we try to pass the buck — when we make excuses for ourselves, blame other people, or try to avoid the natural consequences of our actions, the results are the opposite. Our failure snowballs into more failure. When we respond to failure like — well, like it’s a failure — we are much less likely to recover from it.

Because I can only receive what failure has to teach me if I am willing to fully embrace the failure itself, when I am willing to accept the fact that failure occurred, I also get the positive lessons failure teaches. Some failures are bigger than others, some are more public than others, some are more humiliating, some have a greater stigma around them. But in learning to own my failures, admitting them, even embracing them, I am much more likely to get the results I want. The next time I think I have failed miserably, I will remind myself of the amazing benefits failure can bring. The greater the failure, the greater the potential for reward. I might fail, but failure does not define me.

The ultimate goal is that I can finally make peace with my failures — past, present and future. Not only will I recognize it does not define me, I will also be able to rest in knowing failure does not need to set me back. Failure can be one of life’s great teachers; it is nature’s chisel that chips away at all the excess, stripping down egos as it molds and shapes us through divine intentions. Without failure, I would be less capable of compassion, empathy, kindness, and great achievement. It is through failure that we learn the greatest lessons that life could teach us.

Failure Lesson #1: Experience

The first important lesson gained from failure is experience. What happens when we fail? When we go through something and can walk away with firsthand experience, it helps us to develop a deeper understanding for life. It completely alters our frame-of-mind through the induction of pain. It makes us reflect on the real nature of things and their importance in our lives, transforming and improving our future-selves.

Lesson #2: Knowledge

Failure brings with it important firsthand knowledge. That knowledge can be harnessed in the future to overcome that very failure that inflicted so much pain in the first place. Nothing can replace the knowledge gained from failure. When Benjamin Franklin famously failed nearly 10,000 times to create a commercially viable electric lightbulb, with each failure, he gained the knowledge of just one more avenue that did not work. It was the accumulated knowledge developed from nearly 10,000 failed attempts that ultimately led to his success.

Lesson #3: Resilience

Failing in life helps to build resilience. The more we fail, the more resilient we become. In order to achieve great success, we must know resilience. Because, if we think that we are going to succeed on the first try, or even the first few tries, then we are sure to set ourselves up for a far more painful failure.

Lesson #4: Growth

When we fail, we grow and mature as human beings. We reach deeper meanings and understandings about our lives and why we are doing the things that we are doing. This helps us to reflect and take things into perspective, developing meaning from painful situations. Life is designed for us to grow and improve. From the very genetic fibers that make us into who we are as individual persons, into the fabric of society on a global scale, growth is a fundamental part of us. Without growth, we could not improve life on every front.

How to Recover from Failure

There are many ways to recover from failure. Once I understood what failure is, and how it is meant to serve me rather than hinder me, I freed my mind and opened your heart to experience the joy of failure. Joy? Yes – Joy. When I am experiencing failure, it is hard to recognize the importance of it. I cannot see the forest through the trees, so to speak, when there is a fire threatening to burn the whole village down, but that is what I must do.

#1 – Ignore the Naysayers

When you fail, surely there will be the people telling you, “I told you so,” and, “You should have listened to me.” Ignore those people. Ignore the naysayers. Living a life that’s completely safe all the time, is not really living.

#2 – Understand and Realize that it is Okay to Fail

One of the best ways to recover from failure is to understand that it is quite alright to fail. It’s okay to fail, but it is not okay to give up. Success will taste so much sweeter when you reach it. Pushing forward and not giving up is quite possibly one of the best ways to recover from failure. Remember, it’s not true failure unless you throw in that proverbial towel and wholeheartedly give up forever. Failure will take you on a journey that you might not want to go on. But, the reality of the situation is that those journeys will help to mold and shape you into a better person. Recovering from failure becomes far more effortless with the knowledge and experience of that failure under our belts, and there is simply no way forward in life without failure.

#3 – Using Failure as Leverage

If you have failed in life, you can use that as leverage to not only recover from it, but to help propel you forward in the future. Failure can be a great a platform for growth that is simply unmatched. To leverage your failures, you have to illuminate them to your mind. Write out what you failed at and why you failed. How will you learn from the past to help shape a bigger and brighter future? Failure is not the end of the road as long as you do not give up. If you still believe in your goals, you can use the failure as leverage to push past the old limitations of your past.

#4 – Revisit Your Goals

Did you have clear and concrete goals in the past? Did you set your goals the SMART (specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, timely) way? Revisit your goals from the past and look at just how clear you were with your goals. Were they precise and exact? Did you visualize them in your mind? Sometimes, failure results from not setting goals the right way. Not only must we set goals the right way, but we must track and analyze them on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. To recover from failure, revisit your goals and redefine them. Spend the time necessary to analyze and adjust where necessary.

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes, because if you are making mistakes, then you're making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something. So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art or love or work or family or life. Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, this year, next year and forever.” ~ Neil Gaiman