Embracing Failure on the Path to Success

No one likes to fail. We dread it. We avoid it. And the way that most people avoid failure is by not even trying. They don’t try to achieve their dreams because they would rather not face failure than reach their goals. However, what people don’t realize is that failure is an inevitable part of the path to success.

No one succeeds at anything without first having a couple of failures. The people who succeed at big goals are the ones who are willing to try, and who keep trying even after they experience failures along the way.

That is a different way of looking at failure, isn’t it? Most of the time, we view it as an end of the process. We failed, and now we are done. Well, if Thomas Edison took that view, he would not have invented the lightbulb. If Abraham Lincoln had stopped trying after his first loss running for political office, he would not have become our greatest president.

Below are some ways to re-think how you view failure and success. My hope is that you will learn to embrace failure as an inevitable and natural part of the process toward achieving your goals.

Success Requires Trial and Error

You cannot be successful without making mistakes. That is part of the process. We have to try different approaches until we find the right one. As a result, we only become successful through trial and error.

Think of a baby learning how to walk. The baby tries to stand up, and then falls back on his or her padded diaper. The baby then tries to walk using a variety of alternate methods. Grabbing mom’s hand. Holding onto the sofa or coffee table to pull themselves up. The baby tries to stand up countless times before finally learning to walk.

Now, during all those failed attempts, do we look at the baby and say, “Wow. What a failure!” Obviously not. The baby has to go through many attempts to learn how to balance and coordinate their legs and feet.

We are the same. When we want to do something as monumental as walking is for a baby, we need to go through a lot of failed attempts. Through those attempts we try different ways of doing things until we get to the right one. Beating yourself up for failures on the path to success is as reasonable as being irritated with a baby for not being able to walk immediately. It’s silly.

Success Requires Humility

So, to achieve success, you need to be humble. Why? Because humble people are OK with being imperfect. As a result, they don’t fall apart when they have some failures along the path to success.

People who lack humility fall apart when they face failure. They constantly need others to view them as “awesome.” So, to be awesome, you can’t challenge yourself. If you challenge yourself, you will have some failures. Instead, to be awesome, you have to live an average life. That way, you will always be perfect.

I know people who have chosen the average path. They never fail, so they are perfect people. But on the other hand, they never push themselves. For example, I have a friend who went to graduate school. After graduating, she worked for a while, and then had kids. After having children, she never returned to the workplace. Instead, she has stayed home.

I will be the first to say that my friend is a perfect, wonderful person. She is kind and delightful. But she has avoided facing failure by not using her degree and pursuing her full potential.

You can do everything perfectly in life, if you stay in your tiny bubble. But if you want to leave the bubble and try to achieve more, you will fail on occasion. And your ego can’t be so fragile that you fall apart if someone sees you being imperfect. Instead, you have to be humble and OK with being imperfect. (To read more about the relationship between humility and success, click here.)

Does Your Motivation Exceed Your Fear?

Once you realize that failure is an inevitable part of the path to success, then you have to ask yourself this: “How badly do I want this goal?” Are you willing to go through failures and setbacks to achieve it? Because that is the price that we pay to achieve any big goal.

No one has a smooth road to success. And that is why most people don’t even try to accomplish their goals. They fear public failure more than they want success. As a result, they won’t go through the pain and embarrassment of failure in order to reach their goals.

If you ask any successful person, they will tell you that they have experienced failure. I have a friend who is a high-level corporate executive. By all accounts, he has achieved professional success. But to get to this point of success, he has had to go through some failures. At one time, he had a failed business. During his career, he lost jobs and had to move his family to pursue new opportunities. He has not had a smooth, linear road to success.

Now, my friend could have chosen an easy path. He could have worked at a simple job in his home town, and led an easy life. But he had big goals that he wanted to pursue. And he was willing to risk failures along the way in order to get to achieve great professional success.

The bottom line is this: Failure is an inevitable part of the path to success. That is reassuring because when we fail, we know it is just part of the process. Failure isn’t the end of the road. However, that fact also makes pursuing our goals more daunting. We have to have courage when pursuing our goals, knowing that we will have failures along the way. My advice is this: Be Courageous anyway.