When most people experience a failure in life, it’s viewed as a negative situation. It doesn’t matter what area of life the failure occurs–a marriage, a business venture, a school classroom, or parenting–it will often leave us feeling an overwhelming sense of discouragement.
If a person does not know how to handle that moment of failure, in the emotion of the failure, they will quit. The unfortunate part is when they quit, they are also giving up on their potential, their dreams, and their hope of a better life.
I believe it’s possible to break through failure and be much stronger and resilient as a result of it, but it takes changing our view of failure. Here are three views we need to develop regarding failure:
1. View failure as necessary.
I once read that the average entrepreneur fails 3.8 times before they succeed. Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just learned 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Can you imagine having the endurance to try again 10,000 times? Edison understood that failure was a necessary part of his success.
Michael Jordan was once asked about his success, and he said,
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted with the winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed.”
No one succeeds all the time, and I believe failure is a necessary part of every journey toward your success.
2. View failure as an opportunity.
Napoleon Hill stated, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of equal or greater benefit.” Every failure we experience is an opportunity to try it again–only the next time the product will be better, or you will change directions on the path you were heading.
I recently was reading a blog post entitled 10 Inventions That Happened By Mistake. The inventions highlighted included the microwave, the Slinky, Super Glue, the Pacemaker, Velcro, Penicillin, X-Ray images, Coca Cola, potato chips, and Sweet and Low. Had they given up after their failure, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy their life-saving (and delicious) inventions.
Winston Churchill understood the importance of viewing failure as an opportunity when he said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
3. View failure as educational.
Coach Rick Pitino said, “Failure is good. Failure is fertilizer. Everything I have learned about coaching I’ve learned from making mistakes.” Every time we experience failure, it’s as if we’re entering a classroom. What did we learn? What can we improve? What do we need to stop or start doing?
By taking the opportunity to evaluate and learn from our failures, we will emerge with valuable knowledge and confidence that can be used to fuel our efforts to try again. We will grow through failure.
Everyone needs to continue to fail. If we are not failing, we must not be trying hard enough.
Question to Consider: Do you need to change your view of failure?
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