Failure is a Necessity!

Failure Is A Necessity!

Some of my most popular Facebook updates recently have been around the perception of fear.  It seems that many people are fearful of starting a new venture.  Taking steps outside our comfort zones can create anxiety and distress, and the further we wander from the perceived boundaries of our comfort zones, the worse this anxiety becomes.

In today’s post I’m going to take a look at some of the fears that may be holding us back from reaching or even starting our goals.

I guess one of the major reasons we’re afraid to fail is because we think we’ll look stupid – to others, but, more importantly, to ourselves.  For many of us, we tend to be our harshest critic and not only berate ourselves internally with tough and unkind words, but often we go on to verbalise not only our dislike of our failure to those around us, but also our dislike of ourselves for having failed.  In doing so we ensure that we have garnered support for the critical bombardment with which we are punishing ourselves.  In this context, is it any wonder that we fear starting a new project which could end in failure?

But there’s another side to this argument in that we also criticise and berate ourselves for not embarking on our goals!  How many times have you found yourself condemning yourself for having eaten some high calorie treat, or for not going for a morning run, or for not having made a start on that assignment?  It seems that we are ‘damned if we do and damned if we don’t’, because whether we progress our goals or not, we will ultimately punish ourselves for not reaching some level of perceived perfection!

So how can we get beyond this negative self-sabotage and move on with our goals?  There is no single definitive answer to this question, but for me, one of the most important arguments for accepting that it’s ok to get moving on our goals and it’s ok to fail is the acceptance that failure is a normal part of success.  Indeed, without failure(s), we make no real progress!

This quote from Richard Kiyosaki appeared on my Facebook Page last week and was very popular:

“In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them.  Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes.  We learn to walk by falling down.  If we never fell down, we would never walk.”

It’s easy to understand why so many of us felt an affinity with this quote.  How many times have we been punished for our mistakes?  Directly and/or indirectly?  I have absolutely no doubt then that attempting to live beyond this early conditioning by not only allowing ourselves to make mistakes, but actively seeking them out as a means of learning becomes a monumental task for many of us.  Nowadays we may not be punished in the punitive sense of the word, but derision from others acts as a similar and equally strong barrier to our ability to break free of the failure chains.

And this is such a strong force to be reckoned with that Matthew J Kirby states:

“Sometimes, when we want something so badly, we fear failure more than we fear being without that thing.”

Can this be true?  Are we really so afraid of failure and what that truly means to us that we are willing to actually do without the thing that we most desire?  Well, it appears so.  After all, how many of us are struggling with an inner dispute which inspires us to seek out the fulfilment of our goals whilst simultaneously compelling us to stay exactly where we are?  We mentally mock ourselves with knowing that we want our lives to change and at the same time wanting everything to remain the same!

But we cannot stay as we are!  We are all fully aware that even if we try to remain the same, the world around us changes and thereby conspires to change our circumstances.  And if that is the case then, isn’t it in our own best interests  to do the best we can to ensure that those changed circumstances are as near to the life we want as it can possibly be?

We must all face this dilemma, for, whilst we may have courage to embark on goals in some areas of our lives, it’s unusual to feel this enthusiasm and confidence in all areas…but…

You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.” Joel Osteen

And move on we must, or accept that others will move us along, with or without our consent.

And so, having made the scary decision to embark on our goals, we must actively encourage ourselves not only to keep going, but also to take time to celebrate the learning in our mistakes.  For mistakes we will, and must, make.  Taking an unknown path will lead to us needing to learn many things, and so, by definition we must sometimes make mistakes…also known as fail!

To close this blog, I have two more quotes for you which I hope will help to persuade you that mistakes and failure are a natural and required part of progress.  The first is from Jason Mraz:

“You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying. To the best you can do everyday.”

And the second is the very famous quote from Winston Churchill:

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

So you see, if you’re feeling brave enough to embark on your goals, and you make mistakes and fail now and then on the journey, it seems to me that (a) you’ll be in very esteemed company, and (b) you’ll be making progress.  What could be better?

In my own case, fear of failure, or more specifically, fear of looking like a total idiot, held me back for many years in the pursuit of one of my goals.  But, once I accepted that failure was a necessity in order for me to reach the pinnacle of my goal, I actively sought out the opportunities.  I am now well on the journey, and yes, I have absolutely made mistakes and looked an idiot!  But, I’ve learnt and grown and I can now count myself up there with those who have walked the path ahead of me…and that’s an honour 🙂

I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories….please leave a comment!

Photo: Terry Whalebone