There is not a person on the planet who does everything right the first time. Failure is a part of life; a learning curve we must all encounter in order to grow. How many failures you’ll have before you begin to win, whether small or large, depends on your attitude.
Failure is uncomfortable, but it’s an important part of the growth process. Some of us fail more often than the rest, and some of us learn more from our errors than others. No matter what your goals, the outlook you have when you approach the challenges and failures you encounter along the way will determine how much you fail before you win. Keep reading to find out what you need to know.
Experiencing Failure Before Success Allows for Growth.
Failure Creates Experience
It’s not always a bad thing to set goals, make plans, and then fall flat on your face. Failure forces us to reassess the situation, see things with a clearer eye, and self-reflect. We are better able to understand the details we overlooked when we made our initial plans. These experiences give us the tools we need to avoid the same mistakes in the future.
Failure Forces Ingenuity
Learning to avoid mistakes is one thing. Finding new ways to work around them is another altogether. Your failures will force you to to find new solutions, whether that means you need to go out and learn a new skill or you have to determine the best way to outsource or delegate. What’s important is that you continue to move forward instead of giving up on your original plan or goal.
Failure Teaches Empathy
This a tough lesson, but it’s an important one. Those who have tried, failed, and then succeeded in life tend to be far more empathetic and understand of the plights of others than those who have had everything they could have ever wanted simply handed to them. Empathy is such an incredibly important attribute. It gives us the ability to truly understand and help others; to identify with them on a mental and emotional level we would not otherwise be able to understand.
So back to the original question — how much do you have to fail before winning? There’s no real answer to this question. The reality is that it doesn’t really matter how many times you fail, as long as you learn from those failures and use them to your advantage as you move forward in life. You could fail once or you could fail a dozen times. You might experience a minor hiccup or a major catastrophe. Find the lesson in each failure and you’ll always walk away a winner.