“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.” ~ J.K. Rowling
The author of the Harry Potter series was so convinced of the benefits of failure she spent a good portion of her commencement speech at Harvard University talking about it and then wrote a book about it. Despite the enormous success she’s enjoyed since the publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 1997, J.K. Rowling experienced more than her share of failures. Not long after she graduated from college with a degree in the classics, she was divorced, jobless, penniless, and raising a baby daughter on welfare. She considered herself an abject failure.
My series of failures were similar to Rowling’s. At one time I too was a single mother with no job and no money, but there was one huge difference — she had learned from her mistakes, I had not. While she kept writing, I gave up. Her manuscript was rejected a dozen times before it was even read. My manuscript was never rejected because it was never submitted.
Too many people, my younger self included, equate failure with defeat. Because of the fear of failure they don’t take risks, and without risk there is no growth. It’s those who face their fears and keep chasing their dreams who are successful. Here are a few of the many famous failures, in addition to J.K. Rowling, who eventually achieved success:
- Oprah Winfrey was fired by a television producer who stated she was “unfit for television.
- Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
- Steven Spielberg was rejected three times by the USC School of Theater, Film and Television.
- Henry Ford went bankrupt twice when his first two businesses failed.
- Jerry Seinfeld was jeered and booed off the stage the first time he appeared at a comedy club.
- Winston Churchill failed sixth grade and lost every election except the one for prime minister.
- Thomas Edison was told he was “too stupid to learn anything” and was fired from his first two jobs.
- Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was four and couldn’t read until he was seven.
- Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”
It’s highly unlikely I will achieve the worldwide renown of the people listed above, especially at my age, but that’s not my goal. The only one I want to impress is me, and I’m learning from my failures.
If you’ve been following this series of 30 Life Lessons, you may know I made a commitment to post an article each day between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Well, I failed. I missed the midnight deadline yesterday and didn’t post the article until this morning. I had originally scheduled another Life Lesson for today, but I thought this was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how I’m still learning some life lessons. This failure taught me that I can succeed if I refuse to quit. And, I learned that I can meet my goals if reevaluate my process. I determined that if set my goal to around 600–700 words per article instead of 900–1000, I’d have a better chance of completing a quality article within the allotted time. We’ll see how it goes.
So, we know we should learn from our failures, but sometimes it hard to decide how to accomplish that. These steps should help you prepare for success.
- Determine your goals. What do you want to succeed at?
- Plan your approach. What will you do to meet your goals?
- Gather your resources. What tools or knowledge do you need?
- Implement your plan. How will you proceed?
- Evaluate your results. If you didn’t succeed, what would you do differently?
Please share in the comments how you learned from a failure and turned it into a success.
NOTE: This is the year I celebrate (?) seven decades residing on this planet. My journey so far has taught me many life lessons, so I decided to share some of them with you. I’ll be posting one each day from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
Yesterday: Express Yourself
Tomorrow: Find Your Passion
