Failure Just May be Your Key to Success

Post by Michael Plahn

Why are we so afraid to fail?  Isn’t it true that the some of the most valuable lessons that we have learned in our lifetimes are gained from the honest feedback and lessons that life give us when we try yet do not get what we want?  A good friend of mine taught me a phrase that I have remembered for years and have passed on to friends and clients alike.  That simple phrase is “maybe God is doing something FOR you and not TO you.”  The difference should be obvious in that the answer lies in our perspectives.  Are we grateful or are we consumed with self-pity?  The unfortunate attitude that I run across as an Addictions Specialist, Life Coach, Executive Coach, Interventionist, Recovery Coach, son, significant other, father, and friend is not one that embraces or even accepts failure well.  In my experience, most people tend to gravitate toward an attitude that life is somehow unfair.

I guess it all depends on your perspective, right? I prefer to look at life and situations that do not go the way I initially would like, as opportunities for something greater.  Maybe something better later?  Maybe this is the way things are really supposed to be?  Don’t get me wrong, I am human and I get discouraged and have all the emotions that any human has from time to time. However, life is always much sweeter when I remember that I don’t know everything, and I certainly do not know how the future is supposed to unfold.  When “she” didn’t want me back, when my father didn’t recover from lung cancer, when my real estate investments didn’t turn into the successes that I had hoped for, and when my personal decisions nearly cost me my life, was I a failure?  In many ways, absolutely.  But I have learned to embrace this so-called failure because I have changed for the better as a result of this “failure.”

I embrace failure because it teaches me valuable lessons that I would not learn if I succeeded with my plan.  It is in the trying and failing that I have grown from a self-centered thirty-something boy into a man who thinks of others (hopefully more and more each day) and can be of service to them.

The real failures and tragedies occur when people succumb to their fears and do nothing.  They take no action. Whether they are of the known or unknown variety is immaterial, fear does and will continue to exist in your life and mine.  The question is, do we have enough faith and courage to walk through the fear and learn from the results (whether they are what we would like or not)?

My hope for you is that you can find the courage to fail today because I want you to continue to grow as a person. It is simple, we are either growing or we are dying.  Its time to get growing!