For many of us, failure is not an option. We’re taught to succeed, and that’s great. But how often are we taught how to fail? Specifically, how hard should we fail? How publicly should we fail? And, most importantly, how should we respond when it happens?
Today, exactly 4-months ago, I quit my day-job to pursue a career in photography full-time. I sent out hundreds of quotes and proposals, out of which came a smaller number of clients. I had Instagram post which did well and others, not so much. I ran campaigns that got a lot of traction and others I had to drop halfway through its run. The point is failure has been and will probably always be part of my journey.
The pressure to succeed is often the single biggest barrier that keeps us from succeeding. On one hand, if you want to see your company or project succeed, you must try new things and take risks. But on the other hand, if you don’t fail, you will never learn what doesn’t work. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about business, it’s this: You cannot predict what is going to work for your product or company. Failing is a critical step in ultimately succeeding.
Here is the reality: The bigger the goal, the bigger the risk, the more likely you are to fail. Every single person you consider to be a ‘success’ has racked up countless failures that you simply don’t know about.
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
Robert F. Kennedy
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill
“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”
Janet Fitch
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
Denis Waitley
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Thomas A. Edison (What a great perspective)
“Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.”
Robert T. Kiyosaki
View this as your prompt to go forth and FAIL, learn from those failures and improve!
