Failure - A Foe Or A Friend?

Fear - one of the strongest human emotions - can kill more dreams than failure ever can. And, the fear of failure is one of the biggest hurdles one has to overcome in order to be successful. However, failure is inevitable. Everyone has and will experience it in their life, and in order to adapt to this failure, one has to pass through an acute process. But the brighter side to it is acknowledging that failure means you are on to something and not sitting idle. A journey doesn’t end with failure, it’s always just another obstacle on the high road of success.

Let me recount a story passed down to me by my Grandfather. It was during the time he was running a store in our village. Once, his accountant made some mistake in the decisions he had then taken. Instead of firing him for the loss caused, my grandpa instead hiked his salary by a certain percentage, because the mistake was rather accidental in nature and not intentional. In the words of Mark Manson, “It turns out adversity and failure are actually useful and even necessary for developing strong-headed and successful adults.” Now the same accountant is worth more than the losses endured then because he is an asset that comes with experience backed by his mistakes.

Failure, like I said before, is just a hurdle in the path of success. I read somewhere that out of all the decisions entrepreneurs make, 65% are not destined to success in the end, but that doesn’t stop them from taking command and making decisions. The ladder of success is never ending. Just think about it, if successful people stopped after their first failure, how little would be the number of successful people.

Failure teaches us how to work around the situations that are out of our control. When one analyzes their failure, they actually get a chance to learn from the mistake. One shouldn’t be repeating the same mistakes in future, but rather get the right path out of it. However, if one wastes their time in cribbing about it, they will never get to taste success. It is important that one always keeps moving ahead in life, because “we might lose a war but the battle is still on”. If we continue crying over the spilt milk, we will be trapped in the vicious cycle of no return.

I truly believe and preach that a true businessman doesn’t make losses over losses. If he fails once, he quickly picks himself out of it and moves forward to analyze his mistakes. He carves out a new pathway for himself and his business, rather than wasting time in self-pity. Afterall, actions have a better chance at success than simply cursing your failures. Life is all about being agile with it. Embrace your failures, treating them as a teacher and they will take you to your success!