Failure is something that no one likes to talk about. Yet, we all do it. Every single one of us has tried desperately to be good at something or to achieve a goal, and we have failed horribly at it.
The success stories are everywhere. We hear stories of people who worked hard and are successful every day, but we rarely hear the stories of the failures that occurred along the way. What about the stories of people who worked hard and failed? Failure is often shamed in a society that values hard work, productivity and success. Indeed those are qualities that absolutely should be valued, but the ability to fail is undervalued. To fail takes courage. To put yourself out there, knowing that there's a chance that you will fail, is brave. The ability to not only accept your failures, but to not let them stop you, is truly a skill that takes practice. The more you fail, the easier it is to accept. And luckily the more you fail, you're also getting closer to succeeding.
Recently, there has been a wave of celebrities, CEOs and other successful people talking about failure. They are opening up about how their failures are actually what shaped their successes. It's clear that many legendary people who are widely regarded as extremely successful by today's standards, such as Einstein, J.K Rowling, Oprah Winfrey, Walt Disney and more, failed countless times throughout their lives. Not only have they failed, they often credit their success to their failures. In fact, something that most successful people have in common is that they're not afraid to fail. This isn't a coincidence.
Failure is a prerequisite for success. No one becomes successful without a few (or many) failures along the way. Success feels good. Everyone would rather feel the pride of being successful than the sting of failure; however, while it can certainly be a bitter pill to swallow, failure always teaches the best lessons. You can learn much more from failure than you learn from success. As Bill Gates said, "It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure."
Fear of failure can be paralyzing. I had always been someone who was terrified to fail until I started to realize how much I was missing out on. I was avoiding anything that I thought I might not be successful at. But the avoidance of failure is the avoidance of life. Without failure, you'll never do much at all. Accepting the certainty that you will fail is freeing. Once you come to terms with it, you can do anything.
