A Better Perspective On Failure
Failure is an inevitable occurrence in a man’s life. It’s rare to succeed at the first attempt in any endeavour or venture. People dread failure so much they forget it’s an essential process everyone goes through while learning and growing.
I have had, and will continue to have my fair share in failing. I remember crying after failing the entrance exams into college after the 3rd attempt. I took it personal because it felt like an attack on my intelligence.
Because of the traumatic effect many have given up on dreams, goals, and ambitions. Others have somehow found a way to allow it inspire them to overcome.
So what does failure mean to people who have enjoyed success?
Talking about his failures, Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
In Beyoncé Giselle’s commencement speech to the graduating high school class of 2020, she commented, “Yes, I’ve been blessed to have 24 Grammys, but I’ve lost 46 times. That meant rejection 46 times.”
Failing is not a permanent sentence. The occurrence in itself does not translate to failure. Your response would determine if it becomes a failure or not. Great people don’t personalise failure. To them it’s simply an event.
This means there’s a way successful people view failure — a better perspective. This drives them to continue after countless failure. Let’s examine a concept successful people have internalise about failure.
Have you heard of the word Failure Testing?
Failure testing shows a system’s reliability, and how each component of a system will react when the elements it depends on are not available. Failure testing is an integral part of the manufacturing process in software development.
It’s a way to ensure that you are producing a product that will not fail under different situations of stress, weather, and temperature. When a product or component part fails, you can examine those failures immediately and correct the problem.
That is the same perspective you should adopt when you are knocked down by failure. There could be a missing piece in your preparations. Success doesn’t happen in a linear life. There are usually twists and turns.
Failure is a feedback telling you to work on some things. Like building materials these elements make your house to stand. The key elements which failure tests to measure your readiness for success are:
Commitment
Everybody wants something. But many are not willing to commit to the process of getting what they want. However, nothing worthwhile ever comes easy. You must be ready to commit time, effort and money to it.
Charles Darwin was the man who changed the way we view our evolution as humans. But before he achieved this feat he was considered an average student. He even had to drop out from medical school because of his poor grades.
Upon graduation from botany, he was recommended to join the HMS Beagle where he joined the cargo to South America.
That journey kick-started his lifetime study of nature which forever changed the way we look as our evolution. So, when you fail, let it bolster your confidence to start again, more intelligently.
Creativity
Once a solution is found, humans tend to close their minds and ignore other obvious and sometimes better alternatives. To find the optimal solution to a problem you must maintain an open mind and be creative with your solutions. This might require several failed attempts.
In the words of James Dyson, “Failure is interesting; it’s part of making progress. You never learn in success what you will learn in failure. I started out with a simple idea, and by the end, it got more audacious and interesting. I got to a place I never could have imagined because I learned what worked and didn’t work.”
James Dyson, the inventor of the bag-less vacuum cleaner, enjoyed his fair share of failures. Isn’t it remarkable for a single person to have 5,127 failed prototypes within 5 years? He eventually got it right at the 5,128th attempt and it turned out to be a huge success.
Humility
Success requires a great deal of humility to be willing to learn, unlearn and relearn. Humility enables you to assess your failed attempts (or have someone do it for you) and pick out the lessons.
People have flaws and weaknesses which can sabotage their success. But only the humble put ego aside to deal with the weakness.
Before Henry Ford succeeded with his “Model A” car at age 40, he had been failing since he was 23. During Ford’s early age, the car business was an expensive venture. No one was given a second chance in funding after a failed attempt.
To friends and family, Henry Ford seemed unperturbed. He told them he learnt invaluable lessons from his failure. He eventually succeeded on his third attempt. “Model A” Car was the culmination of all the lessons learnt, failure and rejections suffered by Henry Ford.
This was possible because he was humble enough to identify his shortcomings and fix them.
Resilience
After a setback, many people give up on the project. This is not the winning attitude. Failure is a guide showing you how not to do things. Winners pick themselves up after a setback with greater resolve and have a go at it again.
People who succeed have developed a mental fortitude to recover quickly from setback. It is this resilience that drove Thomas Edison to continue after 9,999 failed attempts to invent the incandescent light bulb.
There is a need to open your mind to all possibilities. The dynamic world we live in demands different innovative solutions for the same problem. If you depend too long on one solution, it might turn out to be counterproductive later.
Failure is not final. It is a score-sheet indicating the quality of your input. The savour of success tastes sweeter after the pains of failure. Look at failure with the right perspective and join the league of winners who succeeded inspite of failure.
