How often have you come across the clichéd quote that states, “Failure is the pillar of success”?
It basically means that your present day failure paves the path for your future success. The question that you need to be asking yourself is, do you really believe that your failures are helpful?
You are living in a world that is boiling with intense competition. In such a demanding and unforgiving environment, does your life have any room for failures? Your answer is perhaps no, and you are quite right in thinking that.
Sustained failures can make your life miserable, and eventually destroy your lifelong dreams and ambitions. Lying on the back of these failures will take your life nowhere.
In order to make failure the pillar of your prosperity, you need to be able find ways to convert those failures into success. Does that sound impossible? It really is not. Here are 10 simple, but yet all important ways in which you can achieve that.
1) Give Failure a New Meaning
The way you perceive failure determines the amount of negative impact that it has on your life. What does failure really mean to you? Is it the end of the road in achieving your goal, or is it simply another hurdle that you failed to overcome? Optimists would consider it to be the latter one. Failing is part and parcel of your journey towards success.
As a matter of fact, failing is deeply rooted in the human nature. Being able to accomplish your objectives at one go can be attributed more to fortune that your own brilliance. Every time you fail, you need to see it as an opportunity for you to learn your mistakes and improve yourself.
2) Give Success a New Meaning
People have no problem in criticizing themselves on the aftermath of their failures. But seldom do they try to dig out their mistakes once they have attained success. Does success equal perfection? Not quite so.
Every time you are able to pull off a steep task, you need to cut down your celebration by a little and dedicate some of your thoughts to self improvement. If you got the job done, then why should you improve? Well the answer is quite simple. You need to improve to get the job done better the next time around. Much like failure, success too provides a distinct opportunity for you to assess and rectify yourself.
3) Be Persistent
There is much more to persistence than what meets the eye. Being persistent in your task is not solely about bending your back and breaking a sweat. It really is not about the amount of physical effort you put in or for how long you put it in. It is about preparing yourself psychologically for a long journey that will wear you out sooner rather than later. Once you know that you are here for the long haul, it is easier for you to keep your head fixed on your goals and overcome the ill effects of failure.
4) Accept Criticism
There are two kinds of criticism. One is in the form on nonsense hate speech. While the other draws attention to your drawbacks. Whenever someone criticizes you or provides you with a negative feedback, do not play the defensive card immediately. Keep your ears open and listen closely to what they have to say. More often than not, people give away free advice in the form of negative feedback. Do not be an ignorant fool who turns a blind eye to criticism by constantly repeating “Haters gonna hate”.
5) Learn from the Rival
Your failure will often be complemented by the success of your rival. There is no reason to encase yourself in envy at the sight of your bitter rival gloating with his prize. Jealousy and hatred will take you nowhere. Try to be a graceful loser, who is eager to learn from his rival, in order to better him or her in the future.
6) Think of Failure as a Foundation
Every time you fail and learn from the failure, you are adding another brick to your house of success. Failing constantly will do you no harm in the long run as long as you take in the punches with a positive attitude and show a genuine interest in correcting yourself. Remember that true success can never exist without real failures.
7) Think of the Glass as Half Full
There is no denying that failing will indeed hinder your short term progress to a considerable extent. This is the major drawback of a failure. However, this is not all there is to failure. The fact that each failure provides you with a learning curve is what allows the benefits of failures to outweigh the negatives.
8) Go Back to the Drawing Board
Just finding out where you have gone wrong will not suffice. You need to figure out a way in which you can prevent yourself from repeating that same error in the future. This requires a lot of brainstorming and hard work that you must invest in order to let yourself learn from your mistakes. Spend an extra hour in the work place or pull of all-nighters till you find the solutions to your problems.
9) Accept your Mistakes
Sometimes it helps to come to terms with the fact that you simply were not good enough on a given day. Instead of disguising your errors with excuses or sugar coating with dreams of future success, you need to man up and own up to the fact that you did not give it your all when it mattered the most.
10) Larger than Life Success
When people aim for short term success, it takes them longer to recover from their failures. The idea is to think beyond yourself and your own life. Follow in the footsteps of those who were larger than life and had more to offer to themselves and others than money, fame and reputation.
It is high time that you start looking at your failures from a different perspective. Once you do that, you will realize that there is no reason to be flustered every time you trip up or choke. The key is to keep calm and work on.
