Failure isn’t something to fear or avoid. Failure is actually a crucial part of success.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Have you had the experience of really wanting something, but then being afraid that you couldn’t get it? Or starting out on a project, starting out on some journey, but, inside, there’s that little voice that says, what if it doesn’t work? And looming over all of this is this fear of failure. You know, what if you do it, what if you give it your best shot, and it’s still not enough?
Man, I’ve felt that feeling, I know that feeling. What I’ve also observed is this: failure is not an event. Failure is a feeling. Failure is that emotion that we feel when we do something that we expected to work a certain way, and it works out a little bit differently. That’s when that feeling of failure comes in. That’s when we begin to doubt, that’s when we begin to fear that it might not actually work. That feeling of failure is what kills dreams.
So, if we just learn a little different way of dealing with that feeling, if we can actually see failure for what it is, the rest of the ride transforms. So, what if failure isn’t this event that we have to avoid? What if failure is just feedback? What if the next time you find yourself applying a certain action, the next time you find yourself trying something, and it doesn’t work out the way that you thought, instead of getting all tangled up in the feeling of failure, what if you just say, I just learned something?
You know, I just got some feedback. ‘Cause it’s not about you. You can take an action that doesn’t work the way you thought it did, and that has nothing to do with your value as a human being. Making a mistake has nothing to do with your worthiness.
You are inherently worthy, you are enough just as you are. So making mistakes with a smile on your face, screwing things up a little bit, and just embracing that process, this is how things start to happen faster. This is when you lose the fear of failure. And this is when progress begins to unfold in a whole new pace, where everyday you begin to see new evidence of these actions that you’re taking. Everyday, you begin to have a growing sense of confidence in your own abilities.
Failure? It’s just a feeling. And you can change that feeling anytime you want by looking at it as feedback. And then, not so long from now, you’ll have the thing that you want. You’ll have achieved the outcome, you’ll have experienced the goal, and you may even look back and say, that was a lot easier than I thought.