What if Failure Was the Key to Success?

Kreating Boldly would have you consider the benefits of failure this week.

What is failure? 

Failure has been described as a state or condition of not meeting a desired or intended objective. Failure is an absence or lack of success. This definition is pretty general and somewhat vague.

The bigger issue is that most of us aren’t great at defining success which makes it easy to feel like something is a failure when it may not be at all.

What is clear is that failure is a vital part of the process to achieving success, it is a stepping stone that allows for adjustments to be made in order to keep moving forward toward an intended objective and goal.   Failure provides a knowledgeable gift that allows you to be wiser and stronger than before.  Failure sends you a message about a misstep, a deficiency, a shortcoming, a loss, a break down, a road block, and something that isn’t working.  Failure allows for careful reflection, analysis and commitment to try something new and different in order to improve.  

Failure happens everyday and whether we know it or not we are practicing failure all the time.  We have micro failures that we experience daily, they are called mistakes. When we make one, we recognize it, take ownership, accept what went wrong, make the correction, and move on.   

The only way to avoid failure is to live so cautiously as to not try at all, which is worse than trying and failing because a life without failure is not living at all.” -  J.K. Rowling 

If you were to take the attitude this week that failure is the price of admission for achieving your biggest success yet….. Would you consider the following questions? 

1. What if your biggest failure would lead you to your biggest success?
2. What are you avoiding at this moment because of your fear of failure? 
3. What will your avoidance of fear cost you the most? 
4. What are you willing to try this week that might allow you to experience failure?
5. What are you willing to try this week that might allow you to experience success?  
6. When you experience failure this week, what will you discover about yourself? 
7. If you knew failure were a key component to achieving success, would you choose to be fear adverse or fear curious? 
8. How can you make failure a benefit each time it happens?