New Ways You Should Think About Failure
“Success is like an iceberg. Nobody sees the work that comprises it.”― Jeffrey Fry
Most people don’t like to fail.
They hate failure so much that if they could lie their way out, they would!
They like to be in the success camps,
Or friends of those in success camps.
What we sometimes forget is that most success stories have failure histories.
If we want, let’s go ask Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, and Albert Einstein.
If they seem farfetched, we can ask J.K. Rowling, Jerry Seinfeld, and Steven Spielberg.
Most failures we experience are essential in building our characters. Others are important in teaching invaluable life lessons. Sometimes we learn patience with ourselves and other times, patience with others.
There are hardly life journeys that are straight. Most look like troughs and peaks.
Most stories aren’t complete without the chapter on failure.
For instance, someone with a substance use disorder will suffer relapses.
The first instinct might be to label him/her as a failure.
The real lesson here is that those relapses teach lessons on the path to recovery.
It’s focusing on them as building blocks to recovery.
The same applies to a growing business. How many hit it off from the word go? Even more familiar is our journey on Medium. How many people make it ab initio?
Let’s begin to change our mindset if we haven’t. Let’s be more patient with ourselves. Success will come but usually after some chapters on failure. That’s life.
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” — Robert F. Kennedy