3 Lessons Failure Taught Me: A Journey Towards Self-Discovery
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
— Robert F. Kennedy
Failure is and will be a part of everyone’s life. But what remains covert, is the interpretation of its impact. The emotional outburst that comes along with failure, swiftly takes the form of a ravaging wave, drenching the softest corners of our hearts, and leaving a lasting impression that can be greatly overwhelming. It is said that pain teaches us things that pleasure can only imagine.
But why do we associate such strong emotions with failure?
It’s the very simple nature of being human I guess.
We take things for granted, and success for being wanted.
Maybe it doesn’t always make sense to retrospect lives, but sometimes it becomes the only thing that you should do to keep on track. I have read the lives of people, who failed big time, were at the precipice of losing everything, then that last try, last attempt… and no looking back. Why didn’t their emotions stop them from making that ‘one more try’, what was in them that made them the ONE and ONLY?
1) Re-defining failure
What is failure? I mean how to measure failure? Is there a global standard that tells me, how big a failure I am? If there is, what documents do they need to judge me as a failure- my marksheets, bank balance, educational qualifications, job role? I mean don’t you think that the concept of being a failure, is purely relative and the metric … dynamic?
While going through my phases of failure, I understood no matter what I do, I will be always a failure in front of a few people. But what about being a failure in front of myself? Don’t we all deserve to confidently smile in the mirror, knowing that we conquered the unspoken battles?
I believe the most important thing about failure is how you define it. A personal account of what you consider a failing scenario. The moment you are clear about your personalized justification of failure, you will see that external opinions will stop bothering your emotions. You will get a new perspective to judge yourself and, in a way, fight till you satisfy yourself and not others.
I redefined failure as giving up on whatever I do, and not being happy while doing it.
So, what’s your redefinition of failure?
2) Shifting perspective
There is a popular saying which goes like this — if you have never failed, it means you have never tried anything new. Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before creating the light bulb. On being asked about his significantly high failure rate, he said —
I have not failed 10,000 times, rather I have discovered 10,000 ways of not making a light bulb.
This simple way of looking at and understanding things differently is called perspective shift. My shift in perspective happened when I replaced the word failure with learning, and it made all the difference.
3) Consistency is the key
The picture above might look very simple, but it carries a radical thought. The very attitude of undertaking small tasks every day carries huge potential to change the life of a person. Small, incremental actions towards your goal, carry a significant impact in shaping the personality you always dreamed of. Being consistent is always the key because it leverages the age-old concept of compounding in the background. Sometimes, creating a huge goal might look fearful to everyone, and what we fear is something we tend to procrastinate. But what if you break the major goal into minor tasks and try to achieve them, you will see getting consistent becomes much easier and results visible sooner.
Now if you want to know about how to prevent procrastination and achieve super productivity give this a read :)
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