February 17, 2021

What is failure in this day and age?

I know "failure” is a terrifying word. It sounds so…final. It sounds impossible to overcome. How can you ever come back from getting fired, or dumped, or your book of creative advice bombing and selling zero copies? How can you ever truly come back from failure?

This may be hard for you to believe, but everyone has failed. Every author of every book you have ever read, including this one, has failed. Every one of your peers and every person you admire has failed. Everyone you know and love has failed, and all of them will fail again.

If you think about it, you know that you have already failed too, probably a lot of times. You will have had failures that felt like a little blip, and failures that no doubt felt like the end of the world. Some of them are probably already replaying in your mind right now, or they will if you take a moment to think about them. All of those past failures, whether they’re at the front of your mind or a long-distant memory, can answer any questions or concerns you have about failing again in the future.

Each of those previous failures is a lesson. Some will offer you general reminders. That failure is okay, normal even. That failure is never as bad as you imagine it will be. That failure is rarely actually failing, by definition. That failure is never simply getting something wrong.

Some of those failures will offer more specific guidance. That you should tie your shoelaces properly before you leave the house. That you should never get a tattoo on a night out with friends. That you should stop thinking of all-you-can-eat buffets as a competitive task.

All of your past failures can answer the one burning question that you still have about failure itself. How can you ever come back from it? You already have done, many, many times. You have come back from all kinds of failures of all shapes and sizes, again and again.

Even though we know that everyone else fails, it can be hard to fully believe it. How badly can somebody have failed if they’re an author, or a movie star, or a mom?

Well, the definition of the word "failure” is actually much more subjective than it first seems. We tend to think of failure in simple terms. We believe that it means getting something wrong, trying to do a thing and failing at it. But that’s not what it actually means.

The dictionary definition of failure is a lack of success, and success is completely subjective. It is, or should be, defined by you. You can choose what success means to you, meaning you can choose what failure means too.

Failure isn’t getting something wrong, because most times there isn’t even a wrong answer anyway. You can instead choose to think of failure simply as trying. No matter what, you will always do things that feel like a failure to you. But each of those failures will be proof that you tried, and by trying you are making progress.


Posted by: businessranges at 03:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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