Embrace Failure

Fear of failing is as much a motivator for some to try hard, as it is for others not to try at all. Is threatening failure of a course, by a teacher, the answer? It is An answer for some, but far from The answer. We are much more complex than this simple antidote implies, as life is much more complex. When you remove hunger; fear of violence; fear of ridicule; parental neglect or abuse; bullying (and a thousand other factors the individual cannot control) from the equation, then that simple answer may be it.

               In a somewhat normal situation, that is, the issues above are not insurmountable; this fear of failing is very likely to be a fear of others.  What will they think?  Will I look stupid? Fear of others is a condition that we can control. In fact, only we can control our fear. The problem with failing is our view of the process. 

               Many are conditioned to believe failure is a bad thing. Is failure a bad thing?  No.  Failing is as important to success as succeeding is.  We learn lessons from failing that we can only learn from failing.  This is a process whereby we attempt to perform a task and things do not turn out the way we planned, intended or expected. 

               What we learn from failing is how to better plan; how to better research. We learn how to better resource our activities; how to think; what wrong looks like. It is as important to know what wrong looks like as it is to know what right looks like. How would we know right without wrong to contrast?

               Failing gives us an opportunity to develop patience and perseverance. Perseverance is an attribute sought by many recruiters and can only be developed through failing. Failing shows us the necessity to develop better skills, or new skills. Failing teaches us to elicit help and the importance of teamwork.

               Another very valuable lesson is that we cannot do everything we want to do. And not everything that we can accomplish can be done alone. Failure teaches us how to accept criticism; how to lose, and how to endure pain. These are lessons that develop character, are essential to the human growth process, and cannot be learned any other way.

               I ran across a good quote in a daily devotional I read by Dr. David Jeremiah.  He shared a dialog between Jonas Salk and an interviewer. The interviewer asked Jonas to comment on his 200 failures prior to finally discovering a polio vaccine. Jonas replied, “I have never had 200 failures in my whole life. My family didn't think in terms of failure. They taught in terms of experiences and what could be learned.  I just made my 201st discovery and could not have made it without learning from the previous 200 experiences.”

               For a brief history refresher, polio is a crippling disease that reached near epidemic proportions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Jonas Salk was one of several scientists who worked on the problem set and his efforts contributed to the radical decrease in polio cases from hundreds of thousands a year to around one thousand per year worldwide.

               Many good lessons come from Jonas’reply.  Life is full of “experiences” that we often view as failures.  Why not embrace failure. Fail, fail and fail again! This will make us better people. Please encourage your children, your mate, your brothers, sisters and your friends with this viewpoint. Life is so much sweeter when we reflect on and learn from experience rather than dwell on “failure”.

               Of course most of this goes out the proverbial window when we try to apply it across the board. Many uncontrollable circumstances can conspire to derail an individual from any venture in life. Cynicism can take root and a self centered view or apathy can begin to take control. Constant rejection due to some physical malady can also stifle the will to succeed. These are just two examples of how issues of life, and more to the point, how we deal with these issues, can make fear of failure irrelevant. A better option is to embrace failure as part of a natural and effective learning process.