Failure is Not the Opposite of Success
“If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived” is how the saying goes. Failure is probably one of the aspects in life most people are afraid of. But the truth is: everyone has failed and everyone will fail again. We sometimes forget that all successful people have failed, but they did not stop after their failures. They stood up and tried again, time after time. We tend to think that people who are successful were just lucky, it just fell into their laps or they just had the right connections.
When people are successful, we always focus on their success, not on the years of struggle, failure and trying again and again. We only see the bright side and don’t want to, or forget about the years of hard work, while those years mostly bring the most inspiring and motivational stories.
So do not be afraid of failure, it is a part of your road to success. Here are 4 reasons why you should embrace failure and see it as a valuable part of your journey, after all without failure, how sweet would success be?
#1 – Failure is life’s greatest teacher
“The quickest road to success is to possess an attitude toward failure of ‘no fear’” – Ralph Heath, author of Celebrating Failure: The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big.
In order to grow, you need failure, it is life’s ultimate lesson. Failing will happen, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, so you might as well have a ‘no fear’ attitude towards it. This does not mean you should expect to fail, but when it happens accept it.
There is value in failure. Through failure you will get to know yourself better and you will learn from your mistakes. Failures make us rethink, reconsider and find new ways and strategies to achieve our goals.
#2 – Failure will make you reach your potential
“One of the biggest secrets to success is operating inside your strength zone but outside of your comfort zone,” – Ralph Heath
In order to reach your ultimate potential, your personal best and to make the ‘impossible’ possible, you need to push yourself, go to the absolute limits and definitely not fear failure. When you have a no fear attitude and embrace failure it will maximize your motivation, determination and perseverance.
#3 – Failure brings character and humbles you
No one wants to fail, because it is bad for our ego. Failure humbles you and will make you evaluate the situation better. When your ego is in charge, you will not learn from the mistakes you have made, you will not be open to other people’s views or see the situations clearly.
We need the learn, evaluate and listen to other people if we want to see what needs to change in order to succeed.
Your ego always wants to be right and will get in the way of you and your success. In order to be successful we have to accept that we were wrong, evaluate, learn and move on.
#4 – Failure determines the kind of person you are
There are two types of people in this world, people who take failure personally, see it as a permanent situation and give up, and there are people who use it as a lesson, do not take it personally but see it as a temporary setback.
We all feel an emotional low after we have failed, that is natural, human and inevitable. But how we respond to our failures is what determines our road to success. If you feel an emotional low after you have failed, read or listen to stories of people like Oprah Winfrey or J.K. Rowling and their journey to where they are now, this will help you get through your emotional low, get motivation and move on.
“If I become complacent and don’t take risks, someone will notice what I am doing and improve upon my efforts over time, and put me out of work. You’ve got to keep finding better ways to run your life, or someone will take what you’ve accomplished, improve upon it, and be very pleased with the results. Keep moving forward or die.” – Ralph Heath