The Power of Failure

Power 14.

What is Failure?

Failure is a part of our life experience and it is a part of success. Failure can be the result of mistakes made where something does not accomplish its intended purpose but often it is caused by a lack of faith in yourself. Failure is a harsh teacher but a good one if you are prepared to learn the lessons it teaches.

How Can I Fail?

Failure can happen when you have not listened to wise advice. It can be a lack of planning or not clarifying one step before moving on to the next. Real failure only happens when you decide to give up and walk away from your goals.

What are the Benefits of Failure?

Lessons can be learned if you are prepared to honestly and clearly assess where you went wrong and rectify your weaknesses. When you learn what doesn?t work it gives you an opportunity to try a different approach. Failure helps you grow and improve. You can also learn from the failures of others.

SUMMARY

Everyone has some experience of failure. It is what you do with that experience that determines whether you will ultimately succeed. Don?t let failure crush you; instead learn from mistakes and invest the value into your own life by making failure a growth experience and moving on to victory and success.

The greatest leaders have learned to use their failures as opportunities for reaching even greater heights. They see failure as a teacher; a harsh one, perhaps, but the best. They have learned that you will find success ? on the other side of failure. Abraham Lincoln is the most famous leader known for the number of failures he had on the way up the ladder to success, but he didn?t give up. Every defeat made him more determined and more prepared for his ultimate task ? that of President of the United States of America.

Learn from other people's experience with failure; their personal experiences offer untold opportunities for learning. Through the experiences of others there are two valuable sources of information available; two attitudes of mind; two categories of those with similar experiences but with remarkably different results. One serves as an example to be followed (those who did not repeat the mistake), the other as an example to be avoided (those who ignored the lesson). We should all be students of failure. It is part of part of our life experience. We study failure so that we can learn what not to do. However, don?t let failures crush you, they are lessons to be learned and not repeated. As someone wisely said, ?Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them?. Having the same failure twice rarely teaches you anything new, it just emphasises the lesson.

Setbacks will either make you better or they will make you bitter; the choice is yours. Provided you learn from the experience and invest its value in your own life, you can utilise the power of failure for success. Everyone will experience failure at some time in their life.

Failure can make us feel sorry for ourselves. It can be humiliating and disappointing; however, when failure comes, check the evidence and the first thing you may realise is that the fault usually lies directly with you. Often failure can be attributed to lack of planning, lax use of money or a lack of good record keeping and not clarifying one step before moving on to the next.

Out of all such experiences, lessons can and should be learned. Be determined to honestly and clearly asses your present position to find out the reason for the failure and look clearly at your own flaws before trying to blame others. This way failure can be turned into future success. In learning the lessons of failure you should certainly do something to rectify the weaknesses, but keep your eye always on the lesson learned, not on the failure itself.

There is incredible value to be found in the mistakes you make. Remember you are in elite company! Overcoming failure builds character and it is part of the ladder to success. To turn failure into success, take action and re-commit and re-focus on reaching your goal because when you have overcome failure the biggest and most worthwhile victory has been won.

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