Morning Reflection: My failure is not my finish

My failure is not my finish.

How do you know when you’ve actually failed? Life is an exam where every day is a new sheet of paper, where the rules are mostly in your head, and where failure is often an arbitrary standard rather than a specific demarcation in your destiny.

Failure, it seems, is often more about how we decide to interpret our feelings against a backdrop of beliefs and a deluge of decisions. Too often we often shape these events into an outcome fitting our fears rather than a fire fueling our faith.

Many of life’s successes were built on the back of supposed failures. Because someone decided that a supposed failure was “not the end”, we have the post-it note. Because Winston Churchill would not accept failure, the British nation was able to rise from the ashes of Dunkirk and survive and thrive. Because he determined that his election defeat did not define him, Jimmy Carter went on from his loss to become better known as a giving, caring and loving human being.

Whatever you believe your supposed failures are, today is another chance to try. While you can’t rewrite the past, you still get to determine, in some way, how you live the rest of your future.

Failure, if indeed it is failure, is not final. It’s merely another stepping stone, a chance to learn, a time for growth.

Fail your way to success.

And you can find peace.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: Failure is not an option, it is a requirement

Failure is not an option, it is a requirement.

Often as I talk with people about their goals, dreams and aspirations, the concept of failure is the quiet unspoken monster lurking behind their words. What happens if I try and it doesn’t work out? What would people say about me, how will I feel?

The fear of failure has killed more dreams and stifled more aspirations than actual failure ever has. In my life, I have allowed fear of failure to enslave me and prevent me from trying and achieving.

But it’s rarely the actuality of failure that we are afraid of. That’s simply something “not working out”. What we fear is what that failure would ‘mean about us’, and how it would affect our sense of significance and worth.

Where did this harmful and destructive belief come from? Anyone who has ever become great at anything has failed many times over. Why don’t we celebrate the effort, the intent, the willingness to risk and the acceptance of the possibility of things not working out?

Because we are afraid of judgment, both others and our own.

Because somewhere in our societal evolution, we accepted the lie that not achieving some arbitrary standard said something about who we are as a person.

Because we ourselves have adopted the falsehood that our worth is measured by what we achieve.

How would your life be different if you built failure into your plans? I am trying to do this now. As I evolve through my journey, I am beginning to plan for failure, which is just simply things ‘not working out’.

If I plan for things to not work out, then I can accept that risk easier, knowing that it doesn’t say anything about me, but is simply a reflection of the reality that things can go wrong, and sometimes do.

Changing ‘failure’ to ‘not working out’ is a small shift of language, but a powerful release of energy into the channel of your dreams and aspirations.

How has this fear held you back, and what can you change with this small understanding?

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc