IBUKUN AWOSIKA
Failure is not an end in itself, it is the beginning of a story, it is how you end that story or what you take out of every failing situation that determines how you will end up.
Job 14:7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
HOW CAN YOU TURN YOUR FAILURE TO SUCCESS?
1) Appreciate the Value of Failure
You are wondering ‘how do you appreciate the value of failure?’ It depends on your perspective. Do you look at a failing situation as an absolute? Or do you look at it in terms of the value that it brings to you, the lessons it brings, the information that you can get from it and what you can do with that information?
John Maxwell said: “Each time you fail, know that you have traveled another mile farther on the road to your potential, because you have tried something, you have applied yourself to something even though the result that you got is contrary to what you expected, there is something you would have gained from that process which would help you to further be able to achieve that which you seek.”
The Founder of Honda Motors, Soichiro Honda has this to say:
“Many people dream of success, to me, success can be achieved only through repeated failure and introspection in fact, success only represents 1% of your work that results from 90% of that which is called failure.”
We can look at the lessons and the strength of every failure and take from it what we want and apply it on our way to succeeding.
2) Don’t Take Failure Personally
One of the most destructive facts that make people have a terminal end because of a failing experience is because they are not able to separate their person from the event.
If I take an exam based on various factors and various situations and I fail the exam at that point, it doesn’t mean that I am a dummy, it doesn’t make me a dunce, it doesn’t make me stupid, it doesn’t mean that I am a failure and I can never succeed, it only means that I failed that particular exam but as a person, I have the ability to pass. What I need to do is to ask myself, did I study as hard as I should? Did I apply myself as well as I had the ability to? Did my teacher for that period do a good job of teaching me all the things that I needed to know? Was I actually prepared? Did I spend enough time preparing for the exam? I must find the basis for the failure but as a person I am not a failure because that same person under different conditions and a different reapplication of myself can succeed with the same exam.
Not being able to separate the issues stops people from moving forward because once you internalize the feeling of failure, it debars you from being able to make another attempt and yet your success is based on your ability to try and try and try until you succeed.
John Maxwell has this to say: “There is a huge difference between saying ‘I have failed’ and ‘I am a failure.’ Someone who has failed can learn from her mistakes and move on, it doesn’t change who she is but the person who tells himself ‘I am a failure’ give himself little hope and no matter what it is or where he goes, his failure stays with him because he has internalized it.
Deciding that you are a failure or saying that you have failed at a particular thing is what makes the difference between being able to apply yourself in a new situation or otherwise. When you have concluded that you are a failure, what you say to yourself is that no matter what you do you can never succeed at it.
All you need to do is to separate that particular failure and reapply yourself for other situations which you might be better at and move on with your life.
- Louis Pasteur was paralyzed when he found the cure for many diseases.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken with Infantile Paralysis but he grew up to become the President of America and led the Country through World War 2.
- Glenn Cunningham was burned so badly that his doctor said he would never walk again, yet in 1994, he became the first human being to run the mile in less than 4 minutes setting a world record.
- Beethoven the world renowned composer was a deaf man
- Thomas Edison the inventor was deaf
- Charles Dickens, one of the finest writers the world has ever known, was lame.
- Albert Einstein was told by one of his teachers that he would never amount to anything, he was expelled from school because he was “so slow”. Imagine what would have happened if that young student had let that teacher’s foolish opinion get inside of him, we would have been denied of one of the world’s greatest geniuses today.
You might have failed but so what?
Get up and get moving and the story will be rewritten!
It could be your name on that list tomorrow, talking about the failings and rounding off with your success.
It is not over till it is over!
Failure is only a step or a middle way in the journey to your success, go and succeed!
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