No one likes to fail. It feels bad. You might feel like giving up or blaming someone else or beating yourself up. But you might be surprised to hear that many successful people are not just grateful for their past failures, but they ascribe their present success to having tried and failed in the past.
Here are six reasons to embrace your failures.
- Failures are opportunities
To see failure as an opportunity is not putting a Pollyanna spin on reality. It’s accepting that everyone fails, and you can choose to learn from your mistakes, or you can stay stuck in them.
Successful people see mistakes as an opportunity to learn and change course. For example, say you want to lose twenty pounds. To know that you’ll fall off the wagon if you see a chocolate jam donut is some useful information. You can take steps to avoid the things that tempt you most and make it more likely that you’ll stick to your diet.
- Failures show up your weaknesses.
Whether it’s not being able to resist a cigarette if you’re in a social situation, or finding you need more accountancy skills than you thought you did. If you can detach from the emotions of failure you can soon see where the leaks in your boat are and take steps to mend them.
- Failure will make you resilient
One big lesson from trying and failing is finding out you can get right back up again and keep going. You can admit that you tried and failed and use what you learned to build a better strategy to get to your goal. And that’s a huge life lesson.
- Failure will make you innovate
Failure can make you more inclined to try different strategies, to see risk in a different light. If you’re not afraid to fail, you’re more likely to try bold strategies and might just hit on something big!
- Failure reminds you that you’re not alone.
Believe it or not, failure can make you a better person. Accepting failure as part of life will make you more empathic and less judgmental of others. You’ll be more likely to help other people you see trying to make it, and in return, you will be more open to asking for and receiving help when you need it.
- Failure will make you kinder to yourself.
Seeing failure in its proper light will make you more forgiving of your flaws. You’ll be less of a perfectionist and be less prone to self-doubt. And that, in turn, will build your self-confidence and make you more likely to succeed!
So, embrace failure, learn from it and use it as a stepping stone to success.
