Failure To Succeed
Failure. That’s all you hear echoing in your ears as you scroll through your friend’s Facebook feed.
They have the picture postcard marriage, children on the Dean’s list, and no weeds in their garden. As much as you want to celebrate the victories of life that they are enjoying, you can’t help but compare their perfection with your inadequacies.
They graduated at the top of their class. You barely made it out of school with all of your hair. They drive a Lexus. You drive. Well, you will…as soon as your 15 year old mini-van gets out of the shop.
If only you stuck with the training program or took your financial planner’s advice. If only you would have done SOMETHING. You wouldn’t feel like such a failure.
Mary Ash felt like that.
She was a regular person who wanted to accomplish something. Anything! So, she invested her life savings in a new business venture that she hoped would break through the oppressive fog. One month before she was to open for business her husband died of a heart attack. It was enough to stop her in her tracks – and no one would have blamed her if she forgot the whole thing.
But, that is not what she did. She kept going, moving forward one step at a time – determined to keep going. Because of this refusal to allow setbacks to derail her, she built a hugely successful business. Haven’t heard of her? Well, you may know her and her product line as Mary Kay Cosmetics.
Best-Selling Author, John Maxwell is passionate about teaching people on dealing with failure. He believes time spent preparing for success would be better spent preparing for what to do when you fail. He says it’s not a matter of if you have problems but when. And, when you encounter problems how do you handle them. Every person’s life is filled with errors and negative experiences.
Failure is a part of life. But it doesn’t have to define your life.
This is why we are studying Maxwell’s book, ‘Failing Forward’ during our life groups right now. It’s a time to ask the question, ‘What would your life look like if you weren’t averse to failure?’ Our groups provide a safe place for you to pursue an answer. Come join us. We don’t want to fall into the trap of doing everything we can to avoid failure. Because when you give yourself permission to fail you also give yourself permission to excel.
The truth is all roads to achievement lead through the land of failure. It’s not a life altering event. Failure is part of the journey as you learn and grow throughout the course of life. Successful people don’t see setbacks as failures. They recognize that three steps forward and two steps back still equals one step forward.
That’s my hope for you; that you learn to negotiate the setbacks of life without fear of failure. Free to pursue your dreams. Free to enjoy your friend’s Facebook posts without any sense of self condemnation. And, finally free to move ahead – failing forward.
