We can because we believe we can

Is there such thing as Failure?

Friday, October 1st, 2010

No matter how many times I hear the word ‘Failure’ it never ceases to amaze me my reaction to and feelings around that word. It brings an immense sense of heaviness in my heart, sadness in my soul and self hatred to my lack of delivery and not being as good as I should be.  

Many people judge themselves against others and while society and our ever competitive climate we live in focuses on success relative to something it also makes it increasingly hard to deal with situations that do not always go to plan or ‘fail’.  

What needs to be remembered is that ‘failure’ is not the opposite of success. Rather, the opposite of success depends on the situation, it may mean something has not gone according to plan or a change in the environment or situation has altered. This may mean the initial desired outcome that the success is being judged upon is no longer accurate; however this is FAR from failure.

The world around us has become so commercialised that everywhere we look we see images of ‘perfection’ and hear stories of wealth and glamour, this has limited our mind to focus on these very material and shallow achievements that are often the result of chance or luck but almost always nothing to do with our internal and individual definition of success and happiness.

A sense of failure more often than not comes from an external experience or piece of information that we then internally use to bench-mark ourselves against. I truly believe that you cannot fail in things that are external to you and about which you have no control. In other words you only fail if you allow yourself to become influenced and distracted by others thoughts and perceptions.

Think about how many times a baby falls as it is learning to walk – many, many times they fall, but they get right back up! You were that baby! I was that baby! We knew there was no such thing as failure as we had not been told about ‘that word’ and internally knew no difference. We demonstrated a never-ending commitment to ourselves the day we decided to attempt moving on two legs rather than four. We all achieved this in many different ways – some faster than others, others more diligent and cautious, some causing mayhem and destruction along the way! – But we all managed to walk in the end! If we had been made aware of the concept of ‘failure’ prior to attempting to learn to walk how many crawling adults would there be in the world today?!

I guess my point is that for me there is no such thing as failure, sure we get things wrong, make mistakes or bad judgement but this is life, part of learning and developing and a far cry from this destructive and unproductive word ‘failure’. It is what we choose to do with these results and the way we look and learn from them that is fundamental to our path and happiness in life.

We are all unique individuals who have something special to give to others and society in so many different ways, it is all the varieties and talents in people that make our world fascinating. Each and every one of us, I believe, has something to give and be successful at, it may not involve huge amounts of money, fast cars and a jet setting lifestyle but my goodness the smallest gestures, special experiences, warm smiles and softest touch is what really makes the world go round!

So as I always try to do at the end of my blogs is to leave you with a thought around this subject, respecting people’s individual feelings and opinions and remaining mindful that these are my thoughts as ‘me’ – they are not right or wrong, they are just mine!

I would also like to say thank you to everyone who has chosen to leave a comment on my blog –I will continue to share my thoughts as long as there are people who would like to read them!

So until next time wrap up warm, find pleasure in rustling through the fallen leaves as I leave you with a final thought…………..

“There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.” – Anthony Robbins

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