Failure to Further Your Future

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”  – Margaret Thatcher.

Failure.  Even the mere word sounds negative.  That is because since the time we were kids we were taught that failure was bad.  Is that really true?  Is failure bad?  Reframe that thinking to consider failure as a tool to further your future.

I like a baseball analogy.  Do you know what the record is for a season batting average is?  It was Ted Williams and his season batting average was .411 one year.  That means that out of 1,000 times at bat he would get a hit 411 times.  That is considered by baseball fans as one of the greatest records ever.  There are players that are making millions of dollars that hit .281.

What does that statistic tell us if we flip it around?  It tells us that the best season any better ever had in the major leagues was a failure rate of .589!  Even the best fail on a regular basis.

What about the richest people on Wall Street?  Do they fail?  Obviously by today’s headlines they do.  They pick bad stocks sometimes, but they cut their losses and learn from their failures.

Michael Jordan is one of the greatest athletes in our time.  Even Michael missed over 50% of the shots he made.

So what does all this mean?  What does it mean for us?  The fact is, I think we can learn a lot about failure that will actually make us a great success.  Here are some thoughts to help you use failure to further your future.

Failure is inevitable if you are trying for greatness.  Failure is something we must accept as a part of the road we travel to success.  This is a very important item and number one on the list because a lot of what steps people from pursuing success is their fear of failure.  When we embrace the fact that we will fail, and that is okay, then we have nothing to fear any longer.  Instead, we keep our eyes open and pick ourselves, adjust from the failure and move ahead.

Failure is never failure unless you fail to learn something from it.  We ought to stop calling these bumps in the road to success as failures.  Call them “learning experiences” because when you fail, the first thing you should think is “What can I learn from this experience?”  If you can pull just one lesson or idea out of that question, then the experience was worth it.

A great example of a failure is the 3M Company.  Sometimes failure is a blessing in disguise.  The folks at 3M Company were looking for an adhesive and got a sticky paste that held but not permanently.  Failure, right?  Ha, no!  Instead they spread some on the back of little sheets of yellow paper and called them “Post-It Notes.”  Nice failure, right?

Failure isn’t the end but truly is the beginning.  One of our greatest fears is that our whole world will collapse if we fail.  The truth is that rarely happens.  Most of the time we can pick up again, make some adjustments and be right back on the path to success.  It is a new beginning.  Now there is no need to go down the road you’ve already taken so there is one less option you have to try to reach your success.

Sometimes we miss out on success because we quit in the middle of a problem.  It becomes a failure instead of an obstacle we could have persevered through.  When people encounter trouble they have a tendency to quit.  Then they see themselves as having failed.  Failure only happens because they quit.  Don’t give up, keep pushing and perhaps you will see yourself through to your successes and dreams.

The greatest thing to overcome is the fear of failure.  Most of the battle is right between our ears in our brains.  It has been said that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  That is true because in most of our “failures” the end result is usually much less than we feared it would be.  Yet in giving into fear and not trying, we suffer the ultimate consequence of no possibility of success.  Begin to tell yourself the good stuff and change the direction of your thinking.  Begin to see the possibilities of success, not failure.

If you don’t risk failure, you can’t obtain the benefits of success.  Don’t sit on the sidelines of your life fearful of failure.  Get on the field of your life and play – play hard to reach success.

Questions to ask yourself when you “fail”:

*What can I learn from this?
*What did I do right in this?
*What specifically went wrong?
*How can I start again and benefit from this experience?
*What resources do I need to make sure I achieve the success I desire?

Use your answers to start again, renewed, to plot your new course to success.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, CLC
Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
Certified Back On Track Facilitator