Failure!

Do you get caught up when things don't go to plan and simply hit the eject button?

I like you and most of the world, know failure. We all have lives where it has occurred and usually multiple times. What if however, failure was not a dirty word, what if when it happened we did not beat ourselves up over it? I challenge you to put a totally new perspective on failure.

“When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.” - Ellen DeGeneres

Let me ask you a few questions to help you imagine for these people how critical failure is when we want to achieve anything worthwhile.

1. Does a high jumper who wants to compete in the Olympics give up more times than they succeed? Do they give up when they don't meet the height requirements?

2. Edison made 999 attempts at the light bulb before he hit the jackpot. Did he view each failure as an opportunity to change something?

3. There were over 5000 bagless vacuum cleaner prototypes before the Dyson team finally got it right. Did they reproduce the same product each time?

4. Does a young child have only one attempt at trying to walk?

Failure with growth

Failure without growth is a waste of time. In each of these examples, they try and try again. There is a tweak or a new part when developing a new product. Does the high jumper view the footage and change their run-up or jump speed? Does the young child give it another go

Failure is a work in progress.

Failure without growth is insanity. Doing the same thing repeatedly without any change brings more failure, and doing the same thing each day will only get you more of the same.

It is what so many of us do, bad relationships, unhappy jobs, and or financial issues, to name a few. Time and time again, we do the same thing that we have always done, hoping for some magical fairy dust that, when sprinkled, will bring about a different outcome.

I know that I have done this, particularly around relationships. I knew that things could have been better, something needed to change, and I had some ideas on what those changes could have been, but did I do them? NO. I stayed with what was more comfortable, even though it was not fulfilling. I settled for bad or average rather than having a go. Was I so afraid that my ideas would fail? In the end, the unhappiness in those relationships meant that they ended. Could it have been different? I have no idea, but I do know that doing the same things every day meant that I was never to find out. What if I had done something different, and they ended anyway? Well, at least I would have walked away knowing that I had tried and would not have wasted years in an unfulfilling relationship.

I will be honest I am no longer upset that they ended. However, I am sorry that I didn't try, and I am sorry that I didn't take the chance. It's not just relationships, but I didn't step outside my comfort zone for a very long time. I was afraid to take chances, terrified of what others thought of me, and told myself that I was happy with the status quo.

Courage

Is courage the ability to embrace failure and step into the unknown?

Many people I speak to have regrets about not trying, not saying something, not stepping outside their comfort zones, and rarely do they have regrets about the things they tried and failed at. Their regrets squarely are around those opportunities they didn't take.

A life of what if's

Growth

Would a successful life be to never fail at anything or one where failure is another word for growth?

Just imagine for a minute what that would look like!

Personally, I plan on failing at many things, and multiple times, I plan on stepping outside of my comfort zone with zest, passion, and courage. For each failure, I will try again with a little tweak, forever expanding, forever growing.

I have enough regrets to reflect on. Things that I could have changed or at least failed at, but they are now things that I didn't even try. When I think of these things, I know that I would have preferred to fail rather than see that I didn't dare even to try.

No longer am I to have these regrets - what about you? I hope you find the courage and embrace failure like a long-lost friend you cannot bear to be apart from.