I remember attending a live event (NAMS 11) when I was listening to Ray Edwards speak. A key phrase that seemed to resonate with me was, ‘Failure Is Your Friend.’ When I heard that, I wrote it down. The more I started to think about it, I realized that I had to write about it.
While working on your business or your website, or your blog, or your post, or your page, or your product, or just about ANYTHING, you are bound to be thinking about Failure (Hopefully you are thinking about SUCCESS more often, but for now, I am going to concentrate on FAILURE).
Failure, or not achieving our goal, is typically thought of as bad. The only way, however, NOT to fail, is to not try.
Zig Ziglar often said,
Failure is an event, not a person.
If you do something and do not get the expected results just reevaluate and try it again. When you are assessing the situation, take a look at what did not work, and see if you can learn from what happened. The important thing is to NOT let this minor setback stop you.
There are many successful people that have ‘failed.’ This is a great video that shows some of those people:
Failure Means You Have Courage
If you failed, it demonstrates that you tried something new! Not everyone does this – you are courageous for attempting this new task. Bravo to you! Be more courageous and try it again – see if you can change something so that you can arrive at the outcome that you desire.
Failure Means You Get To Learn More
Most people know about the answer Thomas Edison gave when asked about his ‘failure’ to make the electric light bulb work. “I have not failed, I have learned 10,000 ways that do not work.”
Sir James Dyson, the inventor of the Dyson Vacuum cleaner said,
I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure. I’ve always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they’ve had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative.
There is a saying that states, “The definition of success is getting knocked down 9 times, and getting up 10.” When Failure comes a’knockin’ don’t be afraid to get back up and try again. If something is not working on your website, try something else, get some assistance, ask the experts, do anything, but do not give up!
After all… You are Awesome!
So powerful and true.
We need to hear things like this MORE!
There are positive things in the ‘negative’ things.
Actually, failure means you learn MORE. When we succeed, when our plan works, we pat ourselves on the back and are pleased with how smart we are. Without once taking into account luck, timing, or how well we actually planned/executed our actions.
When we fail, we agonize over every decision, every action, every response, discerning what should have been done differently- or at a different time or place.
Exactly! Pick yourself up, learn from the experience, and move ahead! Thanks, Roy!
Thank you so much for the truly uplifting and encouraging post. The video was so powerful!
My Pleasure to share it with you! Thanks, Ruthanne!
This is just the message that I needed today. “If you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried anything new.” I will try to remember that risking failure is better than the boredom of doing the same unchallenging thing over and over again.
There is nothing wrong with ‘failing’ – just learn from the experience!