Turning Failure Into The Reason You Succeed by Sula-Mae

 

Imagine if we saw everything we did as a potential learning experience. Imagine if, instead of chasing success, we chased failure. Okay, hear me out for a second… 

 

We know that our failures teach us a lot and that we can see them in a positive light so what if we took that to the next extreme and actually seek them out? Wouldn’t we be creating our very own, highly effective learning system?

 

There are a lot of challenges people tend to face when they are constantly searching for success. The idea of tying something we hope to succeed at and failing is so scary that it inhibits people from giving 100% of their effort and it even stops some people from even trying. 

 

I usually perform best when I am relaxed and passionate about something. When I have unnecessary pressure on me I feel the fear of failure creeping in, which stops me from taking the risk needed to accomplish the task.

 

Risks can be anything from money invested to imagined potential embarrassment. I tend to have more fears involved when my focus is on the outcome as opposed to the process. 

 

So if I am taking a course in order to get top grades, I might be concerned about investing money in case I don’t get good grades. Or if I am doing a marathon in order to win the race, I might fear being embarrassed if I lose.

 

Let’s flip this and look at it from the angle of seeking failure instead. I might be looking at taking a course that I know will challenge me so much that I may not get perfect results but since my goal is to learn from the course and push myself, the investment seems like a great idea as I have nothing to lose.

 

Or if I’m entering a marathon it's to see how strong my mind is and how much I can really challenge my body. I’m not embarrassed about the idea of losing because I’ll be proud of myself for doing my best and I can learn from the experience to do better next time. 

 

We know exactly how to fail, we are born into the world completely helpless and spend at least the first 5-10 years of our lives constantly trying things we will most likely fail at.

 

Something happens as we get older though, and we start to think people will judge us for failing - which can be true - but the reality is, we can’t let it matter. It doesn’t matter. People will judge you for whatever you do or don’t do, you just have to decide whether you want to worry about the people judging you or focus your energy on becoming the best version of yourself.

 

So what now? Do you just start thinking of all the ways to make yourself fail and stop striving for success?

 

I can already hear you thinking and coming up with reasons why success is so much better than failure. Okay let me get one thing straight, I LOVE succeeding! What I’m suggesting is that we stop allowing the idea of success to prevent us from going after difficult things.

 

Constantly putting ourselves in places where we are likely to fail and being okay with that will make our ‘success’ even bigger than we could ever imagine. 

 

Achieving something bigger than we thought was ever possible after lots of failed attempts and ideas feels a whole lot better than always winning at small tasks way below our potential. 

 

Write down a list of your craziest goals and dreams, even ones you secretly think you’ll never reach. Once you’re done, I want you to choose one of them and do the first step to make it happen.

 

It doesn’t have to be a big step, it could be buying paint and paper if you want to be an artist, booking an introduction class to try out that dance you always wanted to learn, or even just buying a book about business or joining a group of like-minded people with the same goal. 

 

Whatever it is, just do it! Do it with full acceptance that failure will be part of the process and that’s more than okay - it’s expected! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t have to be a big step, it could be buying paint and paper if you want to be an artist, booking an introduction class to try out that dance you always wanted to learn, or even just buying a book about business or joining a group of like-minded people with the same goal. 

 

Whatever it is, just do it! Do it with full acceptance that failure will be part of the process and that’s more than okay, it’s expected!