Why Failing Is Not Always A Bad Thing
Nowadays we live in the world that is keen on success. We compete with each other throughout our entire life. In kindergarten our aim is to have more friends, in school – better marks, then we have a rating at the university. Then there comes a lifelong competition who has a better life and/or a bigger salary.
We’ve been chasing for success trying to find it in different things since our childhood.I believe, that this chase formed a fear of losing in us. However, each of us has failed something in their life at least once. We all know this wonderful feeling. I’m here to tell you why failing isn’t just okay, but necessary.
Here is what failure does to you:
- it makes you find new explanations/understandings and dig deeper
- it makes you stronger (thus, more self-confident)
- it makes you learn about yourself more
- it makes you discover new ways to do things
- it makes you learn life lessons that cannot be earned from success
In my opinion, the most effective way to stop fearing to fail is to share stories. If we open up to each other and accept that we do have problems, we do fail and it is absolutely normal, we’ll stop being afraid to make a mistake
Unfortunatelly, we cannot predict when will be the next time we fail something important. But what we can do is to change our attitude. We can learn how to fail without actually failing. Here are some of the things I do every time I loose:
- take your failure as a sign that would redirect you (I know it may sound quite esoteric, but still, think about it);
- try to expect rather the worst result than the idealistic one (don’t let it make you anxious, though);
- take your failure as a wise teacher (failure may show you what specifically you are doing wrong, what skills you need to develop to perform better next time)
- accept the fact that failure, no matter how awful it is, is not fatal
- get motivated (and maybe wink at yourself in the mirror) and finally move on from the failure
Society created some certain patterns of what should and shouldn’t be considered successful, but these patterns may not work for you, you may simply have different standarts. A big salary and a good looking body is not success if it’s not something you truly wanted. Define what will make you look successful in your own eyes and don’t let the modern society patternize your mind.
Knowing that it’s okay to fail allows you to take more risks in life and c’mon what life would it be without any risks.The most interesting things happen when you go out of your comfort zone. It is something that brings adrenaline to our life, something that makes us feel alive. So, don’t let this fear of losing stop you from taking risks in life.
Failure is the most effective tool for us to understand what we want from this life and make it come true.
Text by
Daria Smirnova