The Path to Success: How Failure Is A Blessing In Disguise

Failure, a single word that strikes fear into the hearts of many. We all know failure as not being able to achieve that one thing you’ve been dreaming of for so many years. Failure, reaching for success but falling hard, hitting the ground hard, having to face to reality. But have you ever thought of failure as helping us to realise that it is not the the end of the world, as a way of redefining our priorities, reshaping what we value, becoming more passionate about our mission, as a way of seeking inspiration through others, of looking at obstacles differently, making us compassionate, helping us to learn who our true friends are, of finding new ways to deal with emotions, helping us to realise that life isn’t as straight forward as Disney tricks us into thinking - but that’s okay, it helps us to re-envision our goals and finally it helps us to realise that in the end success isn’t everything.

Failure will either make you or break you, but it can’t make you until it breaks you, that’s the tricky part. No one has felt that wildly sweet taste of success without first failing in a major way. While some have to endure only a few failures before success others have to endure thousands. Take Einstein for example, the man we all know as one of the most brilliant minds to have ever walked the earth, was once considered a failure. Einstein didn’t speak until he was 4 years old, during highschool his report cards showed that he struggled greatly in many of the areas that he is known for today, at the age of 16 he failed to pass the exam to enter a very prestigious school and he was devastated, during his time at university Einstein almost dropped out and did poorly in his studies. In fact, he was in such dire straits that at the time of his father’s death, he considered his son to be a major failure, which left young Einstein completely heartbroken. After graduating, he wandered, unsure of what to do with his life. After some time, he ended up taking a job as an insurance salesman, going door to door in an attempt to sell insurance.

Take a second to imagine this: It’s a sunny, and warm afternoon. You’re watching your favourite show at home. Someone knocks on your door. You open the door, and a young man in a business suit asks you:“Good Afternoon. My name is Albert Einstein. I’m offering very affordable life insurance for you, and your family. Would you be interested?” This is the same individual who brought us the theory of relativity, with groundbreaking work done in physics and mathematics, and helped us to reach deeper understandings about how the universe works, developing several fundamental core laws governing physics, won the Nobel Prize in 1921 and created the beginnings of quantum theory. Einstein didn’t see failure as the end of the road but as a turning point, he was able to use what he learnt to grow a seed of hope that eventually turned into a towering beanstalk guiding him on his path to success and the history books.

When you fail, something strange happens, you change the priorities in your life, you shuffle things around to make room for the things that matter to you, you look inwards forcing an inventory of your hopes and dreams and it helps you to realise the things that matter to you and how you can use them on your path to success. Harvard Gazette once quoted “It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point, you are bound to stumble. If you're constantly pushing yourself higher and higher, the law of averages predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction." Most people dont reach their dream, not because of failure. Most people don’t live their dream because they give up. You see, it’s not the failure that stops us but that most stop at their first failure. Those who succeed don’t stop at one failure, they don’t stop at ten failures, they don’t stop at a hundred, a thousand or even a milion. They say “this is my goal and I will do whatever it takes to achieve it. I will learn the lessons from any failures, I will learn faster, work harder and I will not quit until my dream becomes a reality.” That is the difference between success and failure. Failure is a massive part of being successful. You have to get comfortable with failure, you have to seek failure because that’s where all the lessons are. You know, when you go to the gym and work out you’re actually seeking failure – you want to take your muscles to the point where you get to failure because that’s where the adaption is, that’s where the growth is.

So take my advice, you’ve got to live at the edge of your capabilities. You gotta live on the edge where you’re almost certain you’re gonna fail because that’s where the lessons are and lessons are the key to success. Failure actually helps you to recognise the areas where you need to evolve, so my advice is fail early, fail often and fail forward. Failure makes winners stronger, it makes winners hungrier but sadly it makes most give up, it makes most feel worthless. Winners don’t enjoy failure but they would never let failure stop them. So I’m going to ask you a very simple question – would you rather succeed or fail?