Failure is the First Step to Success

Failure is a part of life. We all experience it at some point. Maybe you failed a grade at school, dropped out of university, got fired from your last job or failed at your first business venture.

But despite failures, some people go on to achieve great success in their lifetime, while the average person doesn’t attempt anything great at which they could fail (or succeed) because they are so averse to failure and see it as an unfortunate and unwanted weakness. Failure can cause them great emotional turmoil, and feelings of guilt and remorse. They are protecting themselves and would rather make the same safe choices to avoid any pain. As a consequence, they may end up living a life of mediocrity and never pursuing their passion.

What distinguishes the achievers from the average person?

Perception is everything

The answer lies in the achievers’ perception of failure. They have chosen to accept rather than fear failure. But even more than accept, they have chosen to welcome failure and see it as part of, or a necessary step for, their success.

Famous people are usually remembered for their great successes but they all failed at some point before they succeeded. Let’s consider the great inventor Thomas Edison – not so much for his failures, but for his perception of failure.

The lightbulb took him 1000 tries before he developed a successful prototype. When he was asked “How did it feel to fail 1000 times?” by a reporter, he replied: “I didn’t fail 1000 times. The lightbulb was an invention with 1000 steps.”

He simply saw failure as part of the process and didn’t give up until he’d succeeded. Imagine if he’d given up after the 999^th try, or if he’d never even attempted to invent the lightbulb after he was fired from his first 2 jobs for being ‘non-productive’? People may have remained in the dark for a long time.

You could look at failure another way: The more you fail, the more likely you are to succeed: In marketing, for example, you have to experiment with your advertising campaigns to see what works and what doesn’t. You will fail many times before you succeed. That is just how it goes. But every time your experiment doesn’t have the desired outcome, you’ll be one step closer to finding out what works.

“The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.”

– Thomas Watson Sr

So, go ahead and increase your failure rate!

Failure is a good teacher and a great learning opportunity

Achievers don’t learn from their successes. They learn from their failures. They analyse failure, dissect it and look at it from every angle. They may discover they need more discipline to see a task through to its end. Or they may realise that they didn’t stop to learn anything from a previous failure or mistake, and now choose to learn from their failure. They define the problem and analyse the situation better so that the outcome will be different the next time round.

You should do everything you can to learn what went wrong and why.

“Failure provides the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”

– Henry Ford

Failure also teaches you about your strengths. By taking the risk of putting yourself out there and failing (or succeeding), you’ll soon find out how courageous and determined you are. This will build your confidence and self-esteem, and spur you into taking action on your goals. It will give you the push you sometimes need.

Failure teaches and builds resilience, which lets you accept and adapt to your situation. You are able to bounce back from failure, emerge stronger and maybe even greet a few future challenges with a smile.

It’s a choice: You can see failure as a weakness and something to be avoided at all costs, or an opportunity to learn something and be one step closer to reaching your goal.

What have you learnt from failure? Add a comment below.