5 Truths About Failure That Few Will Tell You
Failure is not something you should glorify, but you can learn from it.
All over the internet, you will find influencers telling you that you should learn to love failure, that you should look forward to it, and embrace it.
I’m here to tell you that they are idiots.
Failure is an absolute tragedy and it should be treated as such.
Your failure might be the end of your relationship, bankruptcy, or the death of someone in an accident. The result could be broken hearts, the loss of a means to feed your family or the worst case scenario… a loss of lives.
Failure is not a good thing, you should not love it, or embrace it.
But, that doesn’t mean we can’t get something out of it.
Let me tell you the truth about failure.
It is all part of the process.
Failure is inevitable. We are all humans who make mistakes, adapt, grow, learn and then make more mistakes.
Failing is just part of the process.
It’s your job as a human though, to do whatever you can to avoid failure.
If you are the owner of a business, you want your employees to be able to feed their families, you want to contribute to society, and you need to eat too.
Along the way, you will have failures, but you will continue moving.
That’s all part of the game.
Sometimes failure leads to better places
You will never know if this is the case until much later, but quite often, you can get lucky, and your failure can lead you to better places.
My brother once told me that in order for things to fall together, they must first fall apart.
That is accurate.
Life has ups and downs. One comes after the other, so typically after a failure, good things come. Sometimes you’ll be waiting 1 day, and other times it’ll take a year, but the good always comes back.
So when you’re hit with failure, the key is to not let it cripple you. Keep moving and sometimes you’ll even end up somewhere better.
Failure isn’t always a failure
Going into a situation you might have an expected outcome. When you don’t get the results you want, you may call that a failure, but it isn’t always the case.
Quite often what you thought was a failure actually turns out to be a better outcome.
For example, if you throw a party and the DJ doesn’t make it because his flight got cancelled. Now, someone else has to take over. The party failed, right?
Not necessarily.
What might happen is that the replacement is even better, and everyone had a blast. On top of that, the DJ whose flights got cancelled is going to come back for a show anyway. Now, you have 2 successful parties.
What you thought was a failure, turned out to be a bigger success. The only difference is that it was an outcome you didn’t expect, and couldn’t have known until after the second show.
What appears to be a failure isn’t always a failure.
You grow more when you fail
It’s not necessarily the best, most enjoyable, or easiest way to grow, but the truth is that failure typically leads to growth. This growth is not the same growth that you would have from success.
The growth from failure makes you tougher, more resilient, more knowledgeable, and more calculated. The next time you try, you will have a far higher chance of succeeding.
That doesn’t mean you should look forward to failing. You can still grow without it.
“I rather learn from success” - Elon Musk
But when it comes, look for opportunities to grow, and to learn.
This brings me to my last point.
Learning from your failures is the most important part
If you don’t learn from your failure, then you have truly failed. Don’t let this failure go to waste.
Again, it’s not a good thing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get any good out of it.
After each failure, ask yourself what can be learned from it, and how you can avoid failing like this in the future again.
The best part about learning from failures is that they don’t have to be your own failures.
Let me repeat that in a different way… You can learn from other’s failures so you don’t have to fail on your own.
How is this done?
Read biographies, history, and even fiction. Watch documentaries, talk to mentors and read even more.
Every successful person has had many failures, and they typically want to talk about it. They are so successful that they are now at the point where they want to help others succeed. They know they can do that by sharing their failures.
So, while you will fail, and you should learn from it, you can also learn from others’ failures so that you can minimize the chance of repeating the same failures.
Now that is a life hack.
Conclusion
I hope that by reading this, you started to look at failing a little differently. I’m only 31 years old and I have failed more times than I can remember.
I’ve had many failed businesses and relationships, amongst many other things. Over time I realized that the most important thing is to learn from it, grow, and keep moving forward.
Don’t let the failures bring you down, accept them as a part of life, and remember that everyone has failed.
You will be okay.
Thanks for reading
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