Failure is inevitable. We all know that. We learn this fact of life at very young ages and we develop a response to failure that often follows us into adulthood. Most of us learn to adjust our behavior in order to not experience failure, or at least, not the kind of failure that is very obvious or painful.
We attempt ➜ We Fail ➜ We never try again. The End.
On some level, we all know that the above pattern is a natural but entirely juvenile progression. As we develop and grow, we learn to push back on our knee-jerk, immature response to failure. We have countless sayings to describe this:
"No pain, no gain."
"It has to get worse before it gets better."
"What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger."
"If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain."
And yet.
If we are brutally honest with ourselves, the degree to which we have internalized this reality is not extreme. We set the bar low. We excuse our choices with equally famous phrases like “I’m only human” and “I can only do so much.” Or, we camouflage our choices to not try (risking failure) as choosing balance or contentment...in “being so Zen.” Humans may be at their most creative when they are trying to justify their own mediocrity.
How often do we unthinkingly change our behavior in order to not experience failure? Put another way, how much and how often do we not try just so we don’t fail? If you’re reading this, you have to be breathing and if you are breathing, you are alive and if you are alive, the answer to that question is: MUCH more often than you realize! As evolved as any one of us may be, the magnet-like pull to avoid failure is immeasurably strong and somehow, every day, we give in to it.
If you imagine a typical day in your head, starting at the beginning, it won’t take you long to come to the first occurrence of something you do mainly to avoid failure. Take a moment to imagine the best that could happen in that scenario and then choose to start there, adjusting your actions based on possible success instead of the fear of failure. And know this: it may not “work.” Failure leads to failure leads to failure...until it doesn’t! Success ONLY comes after failure and usually that looks like this:
Failure ➜ Failure ➜ Failure ➜ Failure ➜ Failure ➜ Success!
Mediocrity requires no change. Success demands it. The path to growth is a direct route to your own failure...and your own success. You are not a child, you can do this. Be bold: fail successfully!
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3 comments:
Can't wait to read your new book Jeff. Thanks for the encouragement!
Everything that kills us will make us feel alive
"What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger."
WRONG, it only allows you to feel more pain and suffer more for a longer period of time since you didn't die. Suffering and pain does not make you stronger, it just makes you deader, soulless.
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