“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
-Winston Churchill
Oh, failure failure failure. It seems to be lurking at every corner. It seems to trail behind you like a shadow in the rough sun. Not only that, but it drags you down, whispers bad things in your ears, and worse of all it makes you want to throw in the towel…constantly.
Here’s what you need to know about failure: it is inescapable, everyone must fail at some point; and, it is necessary. Here’s something else you probably didn’t expect us to say: failure is actually a good thing. GULP. Now brace yourself: failure leads to success. Have we caught your attention yet?
How Can Failure Lead To Success?
Failure is a decision you make after the mistake takes place:
Everyone makes mistakes. It is your job to choose whether to use those mistakes to get better or to beat yourself up over them and view yourself as a failure. The decision starts at that exact moment when the mistake is made. Next time you make that mistake, ask yourself: are you going to beat yourself up or are you going to learn from it?
Failure is a matter of perspective, which can be changed:
Just because you view something as a failure doesn’t change anything, except for your self-esteem of course. You may feel like beating yourself up and that might be a little necessary, but it doesn’t mean throw in the towel. It means to do better next time and it gives you a road map of what not to do in the future. The reality is what it is, the perspective is your choice.
Failure creates opportunity, you just have to accept it:
In order to find opportunity in failure, you must first accept the failure into your life as a good thing. Accepting failure is actually one of the most essential pieces to finding success in anything that you do. Like the old saying says, “if at first, you don’t succeed, try and try again.”
Failure can be a voice for redirection:
This is an interesting way to view failure that you may not have considered before. Sometimes we are not doing what we want to be doing in life or we are going in the wrong direction. The universe has a different purpose for us and we simply lost our way. That’s when failure comes into play. Failure can act like a GPS in your life, pointing you in the right direction or simply opening up an entirely new route that you may not have considered before.
Past experiences not only make up who we are, but they teach us life lessons. This is why Virginia Woolf had written in her journals that writers should wait until at least the age of 30 to become published. The things that we view as failure is simply the undercoat to the amazing painting that is created later. The sooner you realize that the faster you will find your way to success.
Related Articles: 5 Reasons Why Failure Is Good
How Being Underestimated Can Drive You to Ultimately Succeed
©Love Wide Open
