Failing Is A Sure Way To Learn

Failing Is A Sure Way To Learn

People often take failing as a negative thing. Whenever you attempt to do something and it doesn’t work out, there’s no need to quit – the failure is guiding you in the right direction.

Yes, there are some instances where it’s time to hang it up and do something else, but for the most part, people are afraid. Your perspective has a lot to do with how you think of failing.

The Feeling of Failing

What happens to some of us when we fail on the first or second time we do something? We stop. There’s no data collected, no statistics to consider or any additional information to dive into. It didn’t work, so we stop.

This is what holds most people back. If you knew that you were supposed to fail, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad when it happens. Somewhere in life, we begin to equate things not working out with failing and progress is halted.

We’ve been taught to feel embarrassed when we fail. Others say, “I told you so,” or “I knew it wouldn’t work – that was a waste of time“. These comments come from people who never attempt to do anything, so they tell you that you’re unable to do it, too.

All of this negativity can be so consuming to the point where you actually believe it. You have more naysayers than you have supporters.

The most important thing to remember is that failing is nothing more than learning and correcting your mistakes along the way. Failing is where growth happens.

Failing Is Learning

As Thomas Edison once said, he didn’t fail, he just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work. This is how confident we should be in the face of potential defeat.

It can be overwhelming when you’ve worked so hard on a project and it doesn’t work out the way you planned. Who wouldn’t feel bummed out about that? Shift your thinking – you know what doens’t work, so try another way until it does.

When pursuing your goals, know that 99% of the time, it won’t go right the very first try. This is a time to learn and become more aware of how things really should work.

Failing should force you to do more research and find better ways to put it all together – gather the data, the stats and the additional information. You should feel relentless in the pursuit of your results. It should feel like you’re that much closer to achieving your goal.

Edison kept going with his inventions and he found what worked. He basically failed his way to success. Don’t allow your perspective to be warped by what others say and think. Failing is a sure way to learning and becoming successful.

Bet On Yourself

In essence, failing is learning. The entire process shows you the ins and outs of what should be done and how. You’re a lot smarter in the end, than you were when you first started. Develop the habit of resilience and keep going.

Your goals may take one day, one month or one year to accomplish, but never give up. You are closer to your achievement than you think. Take this opportunity to believe and bet on yourself.

You’re way ahead of the person who didn’t start at all and even those who started, but gave up. The journey to success isn’t an easy one, but as long as you keep learning through failing, you will find your goal in the end.

#BeGoalden

#TBT: There’s Mess In Progress

#TBT: There's Mess In Porgress

You don’t see it. It seems like all this work isn’t making anything happen. You keep working and creating, but nothing’s changed. That’s the mess in your progress.

Please, don’t give up. Success doesn’t happen after you put forth two days worth of effort. Keep in mind, you are building. While you are building, you are (believe it or not) making progress.

What Brings Success?

Making progress looks like this:

  • starting from scratch
  • having ideas
  • doing what works
  • it didn’t work
  • figuring out what went wrong
  • starting over
  • different ideas
  • do it again
  • repeat

It may look like a big mess to you, but it’s called progress.

The Success Formula

There’s not a one-minute formula that makes you succeed every time, at everything. You fail your way to success – that’s the actual progress. Very rarely, has anyone done everything correctly the very first time and was a success. It just doesn’t happen.

Don’t be afraid to fail. Failing is learning what didn’t work, so you won’t do it again. When you fail, you’re not wasting time, you’re working on making it better. Anybody else would have stopped after the fifth attempt, but you kept going and creating and figuring the little things out. That’s what leads to success.

Imagine if we could be a success after the first attempt at everything. Success wouldn’t be success, because everybody would be successful. There would be no value in it. Everyone would be successfully average.

Do the work and see the results.

Turn The Process Into Progress

Everyone sees the results, but no one sees the process. The progress is in the process – that’s where all the blood, sweat and tears happened. That’s where late nights and early mornings happened. That’s where your mind kept going, after your body was tired. That’s where, “I can’t do this” turns into “I got this.”

Other people will talk you out of it. Don’t join them and talk yourself out of it, too. It’s not that it’s never going to work – you’re just not finished, yet. That’s it. Keep going.

Have faith in yourself and know that you are capable of achieving success. The mess in the middle is a way of pushing you towards your greatness. Work through it. Success is just on the other side and you’ll be happy you did.

Change The Path, Not The Goal

Photo by John Torcasio on Unsplash

We all want to get there in as little time and pain, as possible. No matter what it is, our logic tells us to take the path of least resistance.

If you haven’t noticed, that path leads no where. It takes you directly to the place where you don’t want to be or back to square one – with the other average people.

The entire point is to get to your goal. You start and you hit an obstacle. That’s what happens. You figure it out (hooray!) and then you continue. Something happens that sets you back two steps. You deal with it.

Your belief in reaching your goal is strong, but a few months in, your faith begins to get a little shaky. “There has to be a better way,” you think.

Doing your best, you come up with a plan and switch your game up. That seems to help! Once again, you’re making progress. You can see the top of the mountain and you’re getting closer and closer.

After turning down dinner with friends, working through the weekends and remaining disciplined and focused, you finally reach your goal!

Congratulations! This is what it takes. Too many of us want the quick and easy way to the end. We want to see it before we even start to move towards it, just to be sure it’ll get us to where we want to be. The only way is to start and feel your way until you get there.

Everyone wants to see the path before they take it.

The Goalden Lady

We can plan that path, but understand that it will not always lead to the desired destination. It’s up to us to not quit – go back to the drawing board and create a new path.

Change the path, not the goal.

Let’s take football, for example. The object of the game is to get to your side of the field, with the football and score a touchdown. Every play that your team makes is important. Sometimes, your team will fumble the football and set you back 20 yards.

Then, you use another plan to throw the ball down the field. It could get intercepted or your team mate could catch it and run as far as they can, without getting tackled.

Or, you could pass the football to the running back for them to run as far as they can, while avoiding getting tackled by the other team.

Your team never stops, even if the ball is turned over to the opposing team – they keep trying with a different plan, to score a touchdown.

Even if the odds are against you to make a touchdown, you can still make an attempt to kick a field goal to get some points (which is still progress).

Both teams change their plans many times to reach their goal, but they never stop. When someone gets hurt, the game may stop for a while, but it continues. The goal still has to be accomplished.

This is how it is with your goals. Have a mindset that never quits. People will ‘tackle’ you and try to push you out of bounds (or away from your goal). Like the relentless football player, you must keep moving down the field until you score a touchdown. There’s no other way.

It’s time to play ‘football’ with your life. Never stop reaching for success. The clock hasn’t run out. Until then, you can keep changing and adjusting your plan an infinite number of times.

Change your path and adjust as often as you need to, but remember to keep the goal in front of you, at all times.

#BeGoalden