Your view on failure will determine how you see it. You might not like to be faced with a challenge that brings about this emotion, but looking at it another way would help you see the experiences as positive in many aspects. Fear of failure is the main reason why more than 80% of people in the world are not prepared to change their circumstances. Why do people fear failure so much? The reason for this is that people don’t understand the dynamics involved in success and failure.
Everything we do in life has either a right way of doing it or a wrong way of doing it. When we do it the right way we meet with success. Needless to say that when we do it the wrong way we are unsuccessful. Understanding this is important because it puts failure in its proper perspective and removes the fear around it.
When someone who doesn’t understand this dynamic meets with temporary failure he gives up thinking that he is not good enough or that he will never make it. But is this really what it is? Does the fact that you didn’t make it the first time mean that you are not good enough? Does it mean that you’ll never make it? Not at all! All it means is YOU HAVE NOT FOUND THE CORRECT METHOD YET!
So what do you do next? You go back and try and find out where you went wrong. Then you try again this time employing a different method. When this doesn’t work you go back and look at everything you have done so far. Talk to successful people who have made it in this area. Think of what you might have left out and try again. Whatever you do, don’t give up. Why do you need to do this? Because, “Every failure, every adversity, and every heartache, carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit”, says author and mentor to many great men, Napoleon Hill. Failure contains the seed of victory and of success.
Failure teaches you what works and what doesn’t. When you study the reasons for your failure and learn from them, you’ll find the key to your success. The great inventor Thomas Edison knew this truth better than anyone else. Did it take Edison 8000 trials to perfect the Edison battery? Afterward, he uttered this famous quote, “At least we know 8000 things that don’t work”. You should also be like that. Every successful person has had to overcome temporary defeat at one time or another. Know this! You haven’t really failed until you ACCEPT defeat. Do you envy those who got success easily? Don’t! Success earned in spite of earlier failure is so much sweeter than if you would get it otherwise.
Those who earn success in this way know the road to success. They are not afraid of losing what they have because they have learned how to become successful. Those that easily got success don’t know the road. They got there so quickly that they didn’t bother to look around. Let me use the following analogy to illustrate. Take two guys traveling to the same destination, with this difference. The one is going by airplane and the other by car, but the one arriving by car had a few breakdowns along the way.
If you take these two guys back to their original position and ask them to find their way to their destination, who do you think is going to remember the road better the next time? Surely the guy who had a few breakdowns and spend some time on the road, because he had the opportunity to look around. Don’t let temporary setbacks stop you. You have a lot of hidden talent, so start moving towards your goals and realizing your dreams. Failure is an ally because it contains the seed of success, so don’t be put off by the fear of failure.
