Have you ever thought about what it means to fail?
A lot of times when we fail, we want to give up. Trying again seems pointless because we have already failed at what we attempted.
But think about how many times people have failed, tried again – often many more times – and then succeeded.
It is well known that Thomas Edison tried over 1,000 different combinations of filaments before finding one that would work consistently and last for more than a few hours.
I have heard that he was once asked how it felt to fail 1,000 times and his supposed response was, “Now we know 1,000 ways that do not work.”
Whether that part of the story is true or not, it is a good reminder.
Failure does not mean that what you are trying to do will be unsuccessful. It just means that you have to get back up and try again.
Be resilient. Accept that failure is a normal part of life and a part of the process of learning.
Learn from your mistakes.
Try harder. Don’t accept the status quo and “just be ok” with where you are.
The people that have the most success are often the same people who are failing the most. But because they keep trying, eventually they succeed.
Those that do not have success (however you define it) fail to reach their goals because they give up at the first sign of failure.
Let me close by sharing a video. This talk by writer Joshua Foer. In the talk, he focuses on what separates experts from everyone else.
One of the key principles is that they push through failure. In fact, they try to fail on purpose, but that still makes them better than before.
An example he uses is typing. These days, if you work in a typical office, you probably spend a good amount of your day sitting in front of your computer. How much would your work improve if you could 25, 50 or 100 times faster than you currently do?
Where failure comes into play here is that one method to improve your typing is by doing so as fast as you possibly can. Do not worry about the mistakes you make, just try to type as fast as possible. Once you go back to your normal speed, you will actually be a faster and more accurate, because your brain learned from those mistakes that you made.
So learn to accept failure. It will make you better, whatever it is you are trying to accomplish.
Source:
Learn to Accept Failure