COLUMN : why failure is the road to success

we’ve been taught to dread it – that feeling of making a mistake, of failing. we’ve been told over and over again that failure is the opposite of success, it’s got to be either one or the other.
what a horribly harsh and discouraging way of looking at it.

when we start on a new venture, to be able to even get our asses in gear, our belief in reaching our goal must be a hundred times greater than our fear of failing at it. we have to be so confident that the risk of not getting there is so small that it makes little difference.

because if we think there’s a fifty fifty risk of being a loser, most of us wouldn’t even think of trying.

yet for almost everything in my life that i count as a true success, there’s usually a whole heap of mistakes, fails, missteps and tumbles along the way. stuff that sounded like good ideas at the time, and turned out to be detours, frights, or downright damages to heal from.

because when it comes to the things i count as true successes, most of them have in common that they were risky. that i took the road less travelled. that i didn’t do safe, tried and tested. i had an idea, wanted to try something new, and it worked. quite often right after not working for a few times. and for everyone of those not working times, i learned something. without those lessons, the success would of course never have happened. if i had given up. if my confidence took too huge a turn. if i had beaten myself up, instead of shaking myself off.

so the next time i succeed – i will count my fails, remember them with pride. wear those sons of bitches like little badges of honour. feel good that i’m ok with being a failure from time to time, it just doesn’t scare me that much.

and most importantly : that even if i never would have succeeded, the lessons i learnt while failing would have made it worth trying anyway.

love // jenny

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