By Ameerah Angelina
Failure is a concept which all of us are familiar with. Am sure, weve been through it more than a few times throughout our lives. Although our definition of failure varies, many of us tend to share the same fear for failure.
Former British Prime Minister, Winston S. Churchill once said, ” Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Since a young age, majority of us have been raised to think of failure as a bad thing, which in turn makes us fear it. Thus, when at fault, we will try to hide our mistakes from others; never admitting it, often putting the blame on others or circumstances we have no control over.
We make excuses and trick ourselves into thinking that failure is not due to our own actions, that it is inevitable and cannot be helped, and we then never try to correct our own shortcomings.
Some of us, however, will overreact to failure. We will associate it with our own incompetence, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, this trait becomes toxic when we start to think of ourselves as never being good enough or never being able to do anything right, which then lead to us giving up.
Both of these responses to failure are normal but we will never achieve the success we deserve with such a mindset.
To overcome failure, we first need to accept it. Instead of feeling ashamed or guilty, we need to understand that failure is a normal part of life. Everyone has failed plenty of times in their lives, ever since we were babies.
When we first learned to walk, we had fallen countless times. But if we had admitted defeat and given up trying after falling, we would not be standing, walking, running, or even jumping on our own two feet now.
Despite falling over and over again, babies accept that they have fallen and get right back up and try again and again until they can finally take that few steps to their parents or guardians without stumbling and falling. They accept that falling is simply a part of the process of learning how to walk.
The same should be applied as we grow up and even when weve become adults. Failure does not equate to defeat. It is an integral part of the journey to success. There is no shame in making mistakes because mistakes mean we are making progress. In fact, failure can be a strong source of inspiration and motivation that drives us to succeed once we have learned to not let it define us.
When we have accepted that failure is normal and there is no shame to it, we can then analyse the possible mistakes that might have held us back. Being able to self-criticise and accept constructive criticism is important for us to learn from our failures and find things we might want to do differently next time to get a better outcome.
However, the cause of failure varies. Some may be internal while others are external. Either way, it is essential that we do not dwell on the things we cannot change. We need to accept that there are things we have no control over, instead focus on the things we can change.
This is something we need to understand and accept if we want to overcome our failures. Every successful person we have looked up to or idolised has gone through multiple failures before reaching where they are now.
Failure not only fuels our drive, but makes our success taste so much better. We learn to appreciate our success more when we have fallen a few times going up the ladder. As Truman Capote once said, œFailure is the condiment that gives success its flavour. ***