Failure: The Stepping Stone to Success

Everyone experiences failure, some more than others. You, and only YOU, decide whether that failure makes or breaks you.

Failure is a part of every individual's journey. Think back to every skill or task you've ever mastered. How many times did you fail before you learned how to ride a bicycle, to play a sport, learn to drive, speak a language, you get the point... failure is a part of the learning process. Therefore, why is it viewed as something negative? Why are people ashamed of their failures. If you look at the 'successful' people, they all embrace their failures. After 10,000 failed attempts, an inventor got the light bulb to shine bright, that inventor was Thomas Alva Edison. Do successful individuals look at failure this way only after attaining success or is a mindset necessary for the achievement of success?

1) Change the way you view failure:

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas A. Edison

Failure is a path that everyone travels on in order to achieve success. It takes time and effort to master skills or even just to learn them. Josh Kaufman suggests that in order to learn a new skill, 20 hours of deliberate practice (that is maximal effort and focus) are needed. Furthermore, 10,000 hours of deliberate practice are required in order to MASTER a skill. Ask yourself, what is happening during all those hours of practice? If you were succeeding during practice before having practiced for 20 or 10,000 hours, there would be no such rule. You are technically 'failing' during those hours of practice. You learn something new from every mistake and your mind and body adapt. It is clear that the path to success is full of many 'failures'.

2) Assess your failures with an open mind and humility

I invite you to seize viewing failure as negative, but instead approach every one of your failures with curiosity and an open mind. An unsuccessful attempt is not a complete failure, what did you do right this time? What went wrong, what should you not do in your next trials? Find joy in your new realizations. Even the most successful athletes sit back and watch their game-recordings with complete humility as they learn from their mistakes. They describe feeling joy when they figure out what went wrong as they now know what to change and practice. Therefore, failure is used to redirect you as you drift away from the path to success.

3) Persistence is key:

Video of Nick Vujicic discussing failure

“If I fall, I will try 100 times to get back up. If I fall and I give up, do you think that I am ever going to get back up?” - Nick Vujicic

If you master the first 2 steps and no longer view failure negatively, you are more likely to persist in the face of adversity. However, even the best of us have moments of self-doubt where giving up crosses our minds. These moments are what really set individuals apart as this is when the most self-growth occurs. Think of building muscle; many individuals complain about not seeing results from their workouts, but all it takes is one trip to the gym with these individuals to know why their muscles are not growing. In order for a muscle to grow, you need to respectfully push it to a point beyond its ability for it to have a reason to adapt. Upon watching these individuals, you quickly realize why they are not progressing the way they want to. Once the exercise starts getting hard, that's when they stop. Once they have reached the 8 reps that their program assigned, they stop even if they know that they are capable of more. They stop because it feels UNCOMFORTABLE. However, it is those moments of discomfort where the muscle is forced to adapt and grow as you recover.

"I don't count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting. When I feel pain, that's when I start counting, because that's when it really counts." Muhammad Ali

It's the same for your mind. When that voice of doubt inside your head starts telling you to quit, remember that is when you will experience the most self-growth. Remind yourself of your accomplishments, and use personal affirmations to quiet that voice of doubt that is telling you to quit. Many quit at this point, but those who emerge on the other side of it, emerge with better tools, such as mental toughness, that will assist them along the rest of the journey to success.

4) Fall in love with process:

Do you love what you do? Or are you only on this path because of the objective that you anticipate is waiting for you at the end of the path? We have been talking about working towards the end of the path, but is there really an end? Success is not a final destination, but an ongoing process that requires constant effort & practice in order to maintain.

If your goal is to master a particular skill, you have to put in 10,000 hours of practice. Let's say you do achieve this goal, was it worth it? You spend more time in the process, practicing, versus the amount of time you spend celebrating your achievements. In addition, sometimes you don't even make it to your goal because of variables that are out of your control. Only one thing in life is certain, all people perish and no one knows when. You never know when your last day is. You may think that this blog is taking a dark turn, but this is the truth that you must make peace with in order to live your life to its fullest. Ask yourself: if I do not achieve my end-goal because of things that are out of my hand, will I regret having put in all those hours of practice, or do I love what I do? I am not saying that you should give up on everything because death is inevitable. In fact, I am saying the complete opposite; make every single day of your life count by doing what you enjoy.

If you can't love what you do, why don't you find something that you love and pursue that. That way your motivation is no longer an external reward that you have no control over, but instead, a sense of joy and pride that you take in what you do everyday. Now ask yourself: if you were doing what you loved and it was all taken away from you because of an injury or something out of your control, would you have any regrets?

Doing what you love has also been proven by research to increase your persistance, thus, your chances of achieving and maintaining success. Therefore, you are mentally wired to be most successful at what you love.

End.

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