FAILURE – a big part of success

We all fear failure; it’s a basic human emotion. But we really shouldn’t. Sure we don’t like to screw-up or make mistakes, as it deflates our self-esteem, inflates our insecurities and even more importantly, embarrass the heck out of us. But we really shouldn’t be afraid to fail, as failure is actually a really big part of success and progress – it truly is. So when we do fail, we should not respond with: ‘Oh crap, how stupid was that (failure)’ while trying to crawl under the nearest rock. Instead we must respond with: ‘Now what can I learn from this, so I never do it again, ever.’ That’s the only positive way to handle failures, which makes them into something that helps us progress in life, instead of dragging us down and holding us back; it really is a big part of our way to success.

When you ask yourself if you learn more from the success you have, or from the failures you encounter, I’m positive that you’ll find that much more knowledge and experience is gained from what you did wrong, than from what you did right. And please remember, that the embarrassment we do feel when we fail should be made extremely brief, as our minds must now fully concentrate on what we have just learned, and how we can apply that new-found knowledge to moving forward.

To help us along, let’s be clear of one very important point: For the most part we fail by being ignorant, from not knowing any better. This is neither a derogatory nor a demeaning statement, as most of our failures are based on the fact that we simply had no idea of what would happen, what the outcome would be, if we did this or that.

So when we stuck a finger into the burning candle, we weren’t aware that it would hurt like hell, no matter how many times mom told us it would – a lot. We just ignorantly did it anyway and quickly, rather painfully so, learned something valuable and that was that we should (probably?) never do that again. We had learned with the help of pain and mom repeating: ‘but I told you so’, strapping band aid on your finger, while rolling her eyes.

As our two boys grew up and had their mishaps, I rarely got angry when that happened, as they were kids and they were just learning the basics – the same way their parents had. So when the ‘proverbial’ vase hit the floor, I asked them if they had done it on purpose, and the ‘proverbial’ answer was always ‘no’ (duh). Of course we talked about how it had happened, as to learn not to make that happen again – learning from their failures.

For the most part we don’t try to fail on purpose, we really don’t. It’s more like: ‘oh crap, that was stupid’. We know what we did wrong and just as quickly we write a mental note never to do it that way again – we have learned something positive, burned fingers and hurt egos.

Ignorant failures or failures stemming from ignorance are kind of acceptable, but of course somewhat depending on the gravity of the situation. Failures from stupidity, as in ‘I know this might not work, based on blah, blah, blah… but I’ll try it anyway’, is not the smartest thing to do. In those cases, we are quickly being judged by our surroundings as being, well ‘stupid’. Some of those stupidities do have giggle factors when we tell ourselves that I am NOT EVER going to do that again – how could I? But perhaps we end up doing it again anyway, which is ignorance at its very best.

Most failures or actions marked ‘failure’, also comes from lack of anticipation. We don’t expect anything bad to happen if we do this or that; the old law of thinking before doing. It’s like being naïve crossing the freeway with our eyes closed, hoping nothing bad will happen. This applies to the perception of our actions: do we fully understand what the result might be if we do this or that?

When I started being utterly interested in girls back in the days (14, I think), and I wanted to chat with Jytte, as she was about as hot as could be (and I was not), I totally feared failure in my pursuit of her. Before Jytte even knew I existed, I had already accepted defeat, so why even bother, why even try – a solid strategy, huh? Well, it was solid for this kid with no experience in these matters; no failures and no successes, because I had never even tried.

This was of course before I acknowledged that it was not a disaster to fail, this attitude in spite of my sweet mother’s advice, that when we fall down, it’s only bad, if we don’t get up. But I only saw horrific embarrassment and the ridicule from my peers, marking me for the rest of my miserable life – and perhaps longer.

The perception of sure-fire failure was etched into my forehead for all to see. If Jytte had at least acknowledged I was alive, would have brought me much closer to heaven. So I looked at all the angles concerning any form of communication with her, while sweating in really weird places, stuttering animal like sounds, whenever Jytte was in the same postal area, but nothing came up; and then, all of a sudden things changed.

The teacher assigned pairs of students to do whatever task; can’t remember. What would the odds be for Jytte & Peter? About 1 in 60 trillion, and that being on a good day, but it was Jytte & Peter. We walked down the hall to do whatever, all silent and with me profusely nervous, while my throat tied a complicated knot, eliminating any form of speech possibilities.

  

“So what’s wrong with you, Peter?” I was stunned; she actually knew my name. The knot was in the way, of course, so I couldn’t answer. “I always wondered why you haven’t talked to me. You have been circling around me for so long, stalking me; but never talked to me…don’t you like me?”

Jytte and I was an item for two wonderful years. We were inseparable; she was intelligent, utterly funny and rather sophisticated for someone at age 14. When she moved to another part of Denmark, we lost contact. I often thought about what my life would have been like if Jytte hadn’t moved.

After Jytte, I chanced ‘failure’ with a much better attitude; if I didn’t at least try, I would never know – would I? Sure, some crappy things happened down the road of life, but I had learned that I should never fear to fail, and I can truly say that it has been a blessing ever since. If we don’t take chances we will not move forward; sure, taking chances open up possibilities of failing, part of the process – but have no fear, please… it’s worth it when we find that it’s okay to fall down, as long as we pop up again.

At times results from failures can of course be gruesome and horrific; that’s when we really dig in and try, because we must, to acknowledge what went so terribly wrong, as we must learn, repair and adjust. 

Thinking before doing is of course always recommended, because when we patiently do so, we find that the volume of the more serious screw-ups diminishes and due to that, we actually progress even faster – no kidding and no fear.