Embrace Failure: It Prepares You for Success.
Posted on September 18, 2012 by Mark Strong, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
You can bring the same perspective to shed light on your own life, and your progress in your career journey
We all want to win. When we try to do things, it is our goal to do them well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way—at least not at first, and perhaps not in the way we’d envisioned it.
If Michael Jordan admits in a Nike commercial that he’s had more than his share of failure throughout his illustrious NBA career, we’d be foolish to expect that we, too, wouldn’t take our share of stumbles and tumbles as we strive toward our own achievements.
In your career as well as in Jordan’s, it’s the act of perseverance that counts. Perseverance in the face of failure is what can move you above and beyond your current experience, making way for a different future story.
What You See Now Is Not What You Might Get Later
Success is really nothing more than persisting through and beyond a perceived failure until you reach your goal. What’s tough about recognizing this is that it’s only the final result that you’ll see when you look at those who have already succeeded at something, not the missteps that happened along the way.
And it’s those who have already succeeded who you will see most often, because they are the ones in the limelight of the moment. It’s not the millions of struggling actors, hopeful entrepreneurs, and aspiring writers you’ll see on TV, in the headlines, or in the bookstores. It’s those who have already “made it.”
It can help to remember that at one point in the not too distant past, those on center stage now were merely “wanna-bes,” looking up to their own heroes and dreaming of the day they, too, might succeed. Those who have already reached goals that you’re aiming for now most likely paid their dues in behind-the-scenes sweat and tears. They kept striving—even when no one was watching—to develop their skills and create the pathway that led them to where they are today.
When you see successful athletes like Michael Jordan, Academy Award winning celebrities, and other people at the top of their career game, you’re seeing them after they’ve conquered their obstacles to reach that spot, not during the challenges they faced to get there.
You can bring the same perspective to shed light on your own life, and your progress in your career journey. If you’re at a point where things aren’t going your way, you can see it as a moment in time en route to eventual success, rather than assuming you’ve reached a final destination of impasse. You’ll be much more likely to get where you’re going eventually if you foster tenacity and patience.
