How Can Failure Be Your Greatest Teacher?
10 Things I Learned From Failure
The Value of Failing
Many people shun the word failure. It’s usually used in a negative way. Failure is defined as a lack of success, non-fulfillment, frustration, catastrophe, blunder, or defeat. But I think differently. I owe so much to failure. Because without failure, I wouldn’t have learned as much as I did. Failure has been a great companion in my life. We have been through a lot together.
Through failure I learned how to walk, how to run, how to write, how to read, how to tie my shoes, and how to brush my teeth properly. I learned how to talk to women, I learn how to get over the fear of rejection, how to play basketball, how to overcome hunger, how to build a family, how to do my homework properly, how to study for tests, that I should listen to my parents, and I learned how to stay out of trouble. The biggest lesson I think that I learned from failure is how to be successful.
Let me tell you about a truth that most people overlook in life. You never really fail until you give up and stop trying. In life, sometimes making mistakes is the only way to learn. It’s the only way to grow. If you’ve never made a mistake before, that simply means you have never tried to do something that was difficult for you, and that’s the biggest mistake in your life. Growth comes when we challenge ourselves. When you challenge yourself, it means that you are stepping out of your comfort zone. If you aren’t challenging yourself everyday then you are experiencing very little growth.
I love watching babies because it seems like they don’t understand the meaning of giving up. They are so persistent. They never stop trying. Even though they mess up time and time again, they never give up until either you step in or they achieve their goal. One big example is when they are learning how to walk. Even though they fall, they always get back up. Eventually they will walk, and then they will run. Les Brown once said “You don’t stop until you win!” We can learn so much just from that lesson alone.
Here are 10 key principles that you can learn as a student of failure. Failure teaches you about perseverance, patience, humility, creativity, gratefulness, motivation, critical-thinking, inner strength, and the two biggest things failure teaches you in my opinion are that it teaches you about yourself and how to be successful.
1 — Failure teaches you Perseverance
To persevere is to continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty with little or no prospect of success. No matter what you always have to keep moving forward. Learning to persevere is a great lesson to learn in life. I learned this lesson in my own life as an entrepreneur. When I first started being an entrepreneur, I didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew was that I had a desire to build a business. The beginning of it all was tough and it really hasn’t gotten any easier. With every goal met a new goal was created. But I learned that if I kept on going and not give up, eventually I would get to the promised land. Brian Tracy once said “By the yard it’s hard, but inch by inch, anything’s a cinch.” If you continue on and just do little by little everyday, you’ll discover that the mountain that you’re climbing isn’t as difficult to climb as you think it is.
2 — Failure teaches you Patience
Being patient means to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. This is big because most times people give in to angry temper and when you give in to anger you become unbalanced. I’ve experienced this many times in my life being a father and a husband. You will never do everything right 100% of the time. When I mess up I get frustrated and it can cause me to think irrationally. Sometimes I found myself taking it out on my family (which wasn’t the source of my problems). I had to learn to accept hard times in order to get to the good times.
With patience comes long suffering. Which means to have or show patience in spite of troubles, especially those caused by other people. It’s learning to forbear and being tolerant and uncomplaining. Sometimes failure can be caused by someone else. But if you say you love someone and you’re not long suffering towards that person, then you don’t really love them and you’re not only lying to them when you say you love them, you’re really lying to yourself. And lying to yourself is a sad way to live your life. I pity the self-liars more than anyone else. Because people like that will never be able to obtain the knowledge of the truth and the freedom that comes with it.
3 — Failure teaches you Humility
Being humble means to have or show a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance. Winning all the time can make someone very prideful. And as it says in the good book “Pride comes before the fall.” When you fail at doing something it gives you a sense of lowliness. Sometimes people look at humility as a weakness but I believe it’s actually a strength. Because people who are humble don’t have big egos or an overbearing personality. They know that they aren’t perfect, but all they want is to be better. People who are humble are usually easier to get along with and they don’t act like they’re better than everyone else. I had to learn this for myself.
In my youth I used to love to play basketball. When I was on the court “trash talking” was inevitable. I sometimes did a lot of trash talking, especially when I was winning. One time I got beat so bad that I couldn’t even look the other team in their eyes. I was so angry but then I realized that it’s just a game and I can’t win them all. After that, when I would win I stopped talking trash and I decided to be graceful and humble even in victory and I found out something very important about building relationships with people when you don’t rub your success in their face. I discovered that you will win a great deal of respect from others if you learn to be humble.
4 — Failure teaches you how to be Creative
Creativity is the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work. With creativity comes innovation, ingenuity, resourcefulness, inventiveness and vision. You learn how to solve problems, especially hard and complex ones. Failing at something doesn’t mean that it wasn’t meant to be. It just means that you have to think of a different way of doing it. When you are doing something new, trial and error play a critical role in the creation process. Most times it takes inventors plenty of mistakes before they can get their invention to function properly.
If Thomas Edison and the other inventors who helped him stopped trying after the first few hundred light bulbs they attempted to make, the world would probably never experience the illumination of light using electricity. If the Wright brothers stopped their attempt to build a flying machine after failing dozens of times, mankind might not have gained the ability to fly across the world. When we fail it helps us to get creative and look for another way to solve the problem. It helps you to generate new ideas and find new solutions by being creative and thinking outside of the box.
5 — Failure teaches you to be Grateful
Being grateful means to be thankful and to feel or show an appreciation of kindness. Positivity begets more positivity. Learning to be thankful even for the little things is truly a blessing not only to you but to the people around you. When you fail at achieving something it puts you in a bad space. But as you think and look around your life, you learn to understand that it could be much worse. You learn to appreciate what you have more. Experiencing loss allows you to appreciate gain even more. I’ve seen this playout time and time again. Especially in the lives of children. When you are a child everything you need is given to you. When you mess up and lose a privilege, you normally throw a fit. But afterward you are remorseful and when you get the privilege back, you appreciate it more than you did before. You are more grateful to have it.
I read a quote that said “if you love someone then let them go. And if they return they were always yours.” Sometimes you have to give up something or someone in order to really understand and appreciate the value they add to your life.
6 — Failure teaches you Motivation
Motivation is the desire or willingness of someone to do something. For most people the biggest motivator is money or gain. For true leaders and true nobility, the greatest motivator is obligation. If you give your word you strive to keep it. If you have responsibilities you strive to fulfill them. If you see another human being in need, you feel obligated to help them because we are all a part of the same family. A good name with a good reputation and a clean conscience is better to have than many riches.
Failure can bring you down, but eventually you must get back up. Whether you get yourself up or someone else does, it takes drive and motivation to do it. In life there are lows and highs. When you feel low, learning how to motivate yourself helps to make you feel high again.
7 — Failure teaches you Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is defined as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.
To paraphrase, critical thinking is the ability to reason and think for yourself and come to your own conclusion or belief by analyzing and gathering information. This is a very important skill to learn and develop because if you can’t think for yourself, you will be deceived by the lies of others. Thats why so many con-artists get away with cheating others, because many of us don’t learn how to develop the skill of critical-thinking and we believe the lies that other people tell.
If you’ve ever been cheated in life, or if you’ve ever tried to solve a problem that you can’t. You know the frustration of failing. But within that experience you begin to reflect, observe and evaluate yourself. You start to ask yourself the hard questions like “Why can’t I do this?” or “What’s wrong with me?” or “How can I change?” You go through the process of critical thinking to help you figure out the answers to the questions that you seek. Without critical thinking you can never discover how to overcome the obstacles in your life.
8 — Failure teaches you how to find your inner Strength
Being strong is the capacity of an object or substance to withstand great force or pressure. I believe inner strength is more important than physical strength and each time you fail at something your inner strength grows because you’re able to withstand more pressure than you could before.
I remember a scene in the movie “Rocky” when Rocky Balboa was fighting Apollo. In the boxing match Apollo was dominating for most of the fight. Rocky was taking a beating and it looked like he was done. There was one point in the fight where Apollo knocked Rocky down to the floor and everyone thought the fight was over. Rocky’s coach was telling him to stay down and Apollo was already celebrating his victory. But then something happened.
Rocky was physically tired. He was beat down and a bloody mess. In all accounts he should have stayed down. But then he found something. A little spark of fire. Somewhere deep within his heart, he found the strength to stand back up and keep on going. The only way you can find that inner strength that helps you keep going even when you are on empty is to first be depleted physically and mentally by failure. When it seems like you’re done and like you’ve failed for good, then you can tap into your reserves. You can only get to your reserves when there is nothing left in the primary tank. Those reserves will give you such a boost of strength that it will drive you and get you to the finish line.
9 — Failure teaches you about Yourself
Learning who you are is one of your most critical and important missions in your life and you should not take this for granted. Knowing who you are is to be truly educated. If you know yourself, you will be able to accomplish self-mastery. And mastering oneself is greater than mastering others.
Knowing yourself is true wisdom and true knowledge. Most people never reach their greatest potential because they never discover what they can do. They are too afraid to fail. Nobody wants to be known as a failure but failing doesn’t make you a failure. Quitting does. If you’ve never discovered your purpose in life then you will never succeed and do what you were meant to do. Discovering who you really are will help you to find your purpose for living.
Failure helps you because it forces you to deep dive within yourself. You begin to look within yourself for answers and not outside of yourself. It makes you understand your limitations and helps you to figure out a way to surpass your current level. When you fail you learn what you did wrong and why it didn’t work. It is one step closer to the right answers. Finding those answers are critical to helping you discover who are and becoming who you are meant to be.
10 — Failure teaches you Success
Being successful means to accomplish an aim, purpose or goal. It’s the attainment of a desired thing or reward. Everyone seeks success in life, however success for you may be different for someone else. Your success is determined by your purpose in life. When you know your purpose it makes life more clear. You know what you need to do in order to be successful. Success is the fulfillment of purpose. Before you can fulfill your purpose you will most likely have some pitfalls and obstacles. They are there not to hinder you from fulfilling your purpose but to test to see whether you are dedicated to becoming successful.
Failure is a major component of success. Because while you are pursuing your dreams you will experience setbacks. They are there to build your character and show you what you need to work on. Success will always be ready for you. The problem is you might not be ready for it. When you experience failure, do look at it like you failed. Learn to see it as a learning opportunity. If you look at it like that then you will fail your way to success.
Conclusion
Don’t fear failure. Learn to embrace it. If you fear failure you will hinder your growth and development. You will never become who you are meant to be. You will never obtain a high level of ability. The people who have built wealth for themselves have learned to deal with failure. They know that failure helped them become wealthy. Because they figured out what not to do. You can learn from other people’s failure as well as your own. The point is to learn from it.
Always be ready to challenge yourself and you will find out what you’re really made of. You never really fail until you stop trying and stop pursuing the life that you want. Remember this one thing. Quitters never win and winners never quit. So keep on keeping on and eventually you will get there.
Hans Fleurimont,
theartoflevelingup.com | LinkedIn
