Failure Leads to Success

Failure is a term we hate to hear in our vocabulary, let alone actually use it to describe one of our attempts at something great. Society does not commend defeat, nor do we as individuals actually want to celebrate a moment of downfall. But maybe in order to truly appreciate the extraordinary events in our life, we have to understand our lowest lows to recognize our highest highs. Success is something that we work towards and it’s measured in different magnitudes based on the individual’s values. Before we reach the top of the mountain of success, we must stumble over the hills of failure to truly appreciate the climb.

While it’s extremely cliché, we do learn the most from our failures whether it’s in our relationships, careers, or other parts of this journey called life. To be honest, it wouldn’t be a cliché if it weren’t true. In order to find what we love and eventual success in whatever aspect of our life, we need to take a few tumbles just so we can pick ourselves back up. If nothing else, it is probably better to make these gaffes earlier than later when the consequences of our mistakes could be more catastrophic. It’s not about how many times we get knocked on our ass, but it’s about how we get back up and continue to march on when others could easily stay on the ground.

Life should be enjoyed, and part of that is finding out what makes your juices flow and gets you excited to wake up in the morning. I tend to struggle with the fear of failure myself and I would be lying if I said haven’t lost countless hours of sleep stressing over what people would think or even worse, what I would think of myself. We all know that we’re usually our toughest critic and harshest judge at times. Instead of looking at failure as some type of outcome to my trials, I am starting to look at it as a stepping-stone to where I want to be in my life. It’s much easier said than done, but it is possible. It just takes practice.

If you’re competitive in any sense of the word, admitting defeat is the last thing you want to do, but you can put a positive spin on it. Start looking at every fault and mishap as getting closer to what you consider being an ultimate success. Maybe it’s as little as perfecting a Crème Brule for the next dinner party you host or finally getting the dream job that captured your visions at night. The measurement of success is solely based on the individual, not the rest of society. And that goes for the degree of failure as well. Robert F. Kennedy had it right, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly.” Dare to be great and capture and apply every lesson learned along the way. Sometimes it takes walking through the depths of our own Hell of failure to truly reach and appreciate the Heavens of our success.

Tags : advice, Advice for Men, Advice for Women, career, culture, failure, Girlzone, Growing Up, lifestyle, Miscellaneous, Success