Don’t Let Failures Hold You Back

You pick up a glass of water to have a drink and as you put it to your mouth…. somehow you manage to miss. After you studied really hard for that big exam  you still didn’t get the score that you needed. You got called into the boss’s office to learn that you had lost your job. We’ve all been there. We’ve all failed and been dealt failure.

Nobody enjoys failure. But there are some people who are aware enough to recognize the positives of failure. Yes, there is positivity to be found in failure, even if we fear it.

I’m not saying you have to like it – failing doesn’t feel good – but failure is necessary and important for your growth as a person. Failure doesn’t signify the end of your journey. In fact, it takes you one step closer to success.

Success in Failure

There is success in failure.  As Thomas Edison famously said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

At Google X laboratories, failure is seen as a way to explore new ideas and weed out the ones that won’t work. A failure propels the project one step closer to success.

A failure or mistake may feel damaging, but fearing that failure is more damaging. You can’t learn anything from your fear of failure, but you can learn from the failure itself. Fear of failure will hold you back, it will prevent you from taking risks, it will stop your growth, you won’t move forward, and you will be unable to acknowledge mistakes. This is the greatest failure of all.

If you fear failure enough that you let it hold you back, then that’s a failure in and of itself.

Just imagine what would have happened had JK Rowling and Stephen King given up after having their novels rejected. Did they allow these setbacks to hold them back? No not at all, they learned from their mistakes and kept on persevering. We all know how that turned out in the end.

So how do you learn from your failures instead of being frozen in them?

Learning From Failures

You can only change how you view your mistakes and failures. They are necessary for your growth and improvement. We must adapt, and we exist as the beings we are because we possess that skill. You should see your failures as part of your personal evolution.

Mistakes and failures – they aren’t the end, they are the things that give us the opportunity to improve and try again. Failure happens all the time and in every industry. Even the greatest amongst us make mistakes and experience failure. You are destined to fail and that’s okay. The key is to learn from it, rather than allowing failure to hold you back.

There are times where you will feel as though you have reached rock bottom. You will question everything. Self-doubt will creep in, and you will wonder if all of this is worth it. In those moments, remember this – you can get back up again. The people who have come before you have managed to do so and many of the people who come after you will, too.

Remember, Walt Disney lost his job and had to give up the rights to his original animated creation –  look at how that turned out. Oprah was fired from her first job in television because she was too invested emotionally. She’s now a billionaire. Steven Spielberg was rejected by USC’s cinematic arts program three times. The Beatles were turned down by the Decca record label but I think they still did OK!

Failures are winners! You don’t have to let your failures hold you back, learn from them and allow them to propel you forward.