how to learn from failure

Failure is not Opposite of Success: It is part of it.

Most people think that failure is the opposite of success, they assume that because they made an attempt that was not successful, that they have failed. They are wrong, because they are only on the right part towards success. A baby learning how to walk for the first time must fall and fail at several attempts to give the mother or guardian assurance that the baby is on the right part to success. We learn and gain experience anytime we make an unsuccessful attempt towards our goals.

Imagine how many dreams and goals are put off every day because of fear of not succeeding. We allow failure and the thought of it to hold us back from making attempts or getting back on our feet after an unsuccessful move. We allow this negative thoughts to hold us and keep us down and back when in reality failure is part of the success we seek. Failure can be a stepping stone and it can be a great ingredient for success.

failure is not opposite of success

Several Benefits of Failure to our Success

Failure has several benefits which we should never allow to waste each time we make an unsuccessful attempt towards our set goals.

Failure opens our eyes to new opportunities. Every unsuccessful attempt is a triumph. It creates a new opportunity to look around for something new, which will usually be a better way to achieve what did not work at first.

According to Harvard Business Review article; ‘ Strategies from learning from failure‘, The wisdom of learning from failure is incontrovertible. Yet organizations that do it well are extraordinarily rare. The article states that despite wide range of benefits inherent in taking advantage of failure, most corporate executives and managers do not utilize these benefits because they have negative view about failure.

This is usually why rules in the corporate world forbid failure and consider it as a taboo while failure is embraced and accepted by those in research, creativity, innovation and mostly in the life of entrepreneurship.

Every successful entrepreneur knows the vast benefits that comes with making unsuccessful attempts. They know that it comes with a lot of experience and knowledge of what does not work which creates room to try new things that will work.

An innovation company, IDEO who has understood the importance of failure to achieving set goal has a corporate slogan; “Fail often in order to succeed sooner”.

Currently all over the world, research scientist in the medical field are all willing to fail in their effort to find a successful vaccine against the dreaded Covid-19. We hear of clinical trial every day because those researchers are anxious to fail often in order to succeed sooner.



Quotes on Failure as part of Success


“Failure is part of success, and nobody should ever view failure as a bad thing as long as you learn from it.”

Jonathan Scott


“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

Henry Ford


“The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top”.

Joyce Brothers


“Striving for success is healthy – but believing you need to succeed the first time around may backfire. Mentally strong people believe failure is part of the process toward a long journey to success. By viewing failure as a temporary setback, they’re able to bounce back and move forward with ease.”

Amy Morin


“Part of being a man is learning to take responsibility for your successes and for your failures. You can’t go blaming others or being jealous. Seeing somebody else’s success as your failure is a cancerous way to live.”

Kevin Bacon


“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”

Dale Carnegie


“Success and failure go hand in hand”.

Sangram Singh


“Failure and rejection are important. Otherwise, you won’t value success.”

Aparshakti Khurana


“Failure never goes to my heart, and success never goes to my head.”

Raashi Khanna


“Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.”

Colin Powell


“Most people think of success and failure as opposites, but they both are products of the same process.”

Roger von Oech


“Success and failure are both part of life. Both are not permanent.”

Shah Rukh Khan


“Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.”

Richard Branson


“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.”

Colin R. Davis


“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”

James Cameron


“My failures may be my greatest successes. It is in failure that I have often drawn closer to God, learn to depend more on Him than myself, gained self-knowledge, and seen things in their right perspective.”

Mother Angelica


“I think about all my successes and failures, and sometimes the failures stick in your head as much as the wins. But you do move on”.

Frank Lampard


“Successful entrepreneurs find the balance between listening to their inner voice and staying persistent in driving for success – because sometimes success is waiting right across from the transitional bump that’s disguised as failure.”

Naveen Jain


“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Michael Jordan


how to learn from failure

How to Learn from Failure

Overcome the emotional blame game and focus on how to learn from the experience of knowing what does not work. It is human nature to begin to blame others or give external excuses why we did not achieve what we planned to achieve. The best thing to do is to remain positive and get back on track towards our goal.

Also avoid people that will blame you that they told you that you will not make it. They are the vision killers

Analyze and Leverage from it. After identifying that your attempt is unsuccessful and surmounting the emotional blame game, go back to find out where you went wrong along the way. Try to avoid the thing that may have caused the failure attempt

Plan a new strategy for success. Going back to the drawing board to make a new workable strategy on ways to accomplish our set goal. Another beauty of going back to evaluate our goal after unsuccessful attempt is that it will open our eyes to new opportunities and ideas which ordinarily might not have been possible without our first attempt. We can also get help from external resources that can help us boost our inner motivation and give us clear direction on how we can navigate through our journey to success.

Start to put your new plan to action. Go ahead to take action based on the new plan. You are now more experienced and wiser and ahead of those who never took any action. Continue to focus on your dream, taking action every day, practicing every day, learning every day until success shows up.

Failure is not opposite of success, it is part of success.

I hope that you have been able to learn a few things from the above because I have personally learnt so much from the article. I will end with the quote from Richard Branson; “Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.”

Please do not stop to make attempts until success surrenders to you.

Thanks for your time. Please kindly add your comment below and also share with your contacts. Also subscribe your email to get notice of next article. I will appreciate it.

Bye for now and keep on trying and working on your dreams.

Cheers,

Joseph.

joseph@ideasforboom.com

 

Comments

22 responses to “Failure is not Opposite of Success: It is part of it.”

  1. Ann Avatar
    Ann

    Hi! Thank you very much for this encouraging post. A friend has just shared it with me and I’m grateful to her for sharing it and to you for writing it.

    I have recently failed and I have been terribly affected by it. But you’ve made me view things in perspective: “Fail often in order to succeed sooner”. Posts as yours and some videos I’ve watched have put me back on track.

    1. Joseph Avatar
      Joseph

      Thanks Ann. We all feel downcast after every unsuccessful attempt. Personally I get encouraged because of my faith that God is in control and He has better things for me than what I am focusing to achieve. Also, the fact that I have gained in experience.

      I have personally done several things including investments that failed. After overcoming the emotional burden, I move on to better things and become more knowledgeable in my next investment or attempt because the failure made me wiser and enlarged my scope of experience.

      Please do not let failure hold you back, there are better things in stock for you than what you currently want to achieve.

      Kindly share the article with someone also, it might be of help.

      Cheers and stay safe.

  2. Skuchmane Avatar
    Skuchmane

    Hello dear, thanks for sharing such exclusive information with us, I was actually doing some reviews when I saw your post online I believe your post has risen up something in me that wants to be great, your post has really enlightened me, thanks so much for the info, I really do fancy these post, the, I’ll surely do some recommendations 

    1. Joseph Avatar
      Joseph

      Hello Skuchmane. I am highly excited that my article is having positive impact and helping to motivate you and others including myself to keep pushing forward.

      Please share with your contacts, it might uplift someone.

      I appreciate your support.

      Cheers.

  3. goldtooth Avatar
    goldtooth

    Wow! This is really an eye opener. On the one hand, it just makes sense, but on the other hand we get trapped into conventional thinking. I think this page is brilliant and well done. I think it will help me greatly to proceed to MY success. I like that video clip – it really added punch to what you are saying. I think you are accomplishing your life ambition very nicely, and thank you sir.
    Goldtooth

    1. Joseph Avatar
      Joseph

      Hello Sir, thanks so much for your words of encouragement. I am very grateful and happy that the article is appreciated.

      Please help to share with someone. I am grateful to you.

      Cheers Goldtooth.

  4. Justin Avatar
    Justin

    We all have given different definition of failure and so many people have defeated themselves in way that they feel very less of who they are not are my willing to try again thinking they have failed beyond redemption but that is wrong. I love how you have taken your time to explain that failure isn’t something we should break down for when we face it but understand that it’s normal and seal with it. Thanks for sharing

    1. Joseph Avatar
      Joseph

      Thanks Justin, we should try and not let setbacks to hold us back from moving forward. We should have the courage to stand up after every fall until we get to our destination.

      Cheers.

  5. Johnpaul Avatar
    Johnpaul

    Thank you Mr Joseph for this wonderful piece. This post boost my morale to continue striving for the best even after some failed attempts. Thank you once again and keep up with your good work.

    1. Joseph Avatar

      Thanks Johnpaul. Please keep on moving forward towards your goal. Success is a journey. Make sure to celebrate your small victories along the way.

      Cheers

  6. Müşerref Avatar
    Müşerref

    Hello Joseph! Thank you for sharing this article to cheer everybody up in these hard times. Two mottos in my life are ” You never know if you never try!” and “Always one more try!”. Failing many times is a part of being human and part of our journey. Keep on failing, you need only one shot to achieve!
    Best regards.

    1. Joseph Avatar

      Thanks Muserref. Failing is part of human nature. We failed several times through our process of growing up until our adulthood. We should not stop to try because that is how we grow. We will keep making progress until we achieve our goals. I am really grateful for your support.

      Cheers.

  7. Kingsking Avatar

    Failure is a proof that you are attempting to succeed and not attempting to succeed is a greater failure. Man ought to keep trying irrespective of how many times he or she fails for the joy of a single success erases all the many failures. Thanks for taking out time to make this available for us.

    1. Joseph Avatar

      Thanks Kingsking. You are very correct. Failure is a proof that you are attempting to succeed, and not attempting is more risky. We should learn to celebrate our journey to success. Cheers.

  8. Jossy Avatar
    Jossy

    What a brilliant piece
    Fantastic Sir.

    Keep up the good work.

    1. Joseph Avatar

      Thanks Jossy. I am glad you enjoyed it. Please share with someone. Thanks

  9. Velch Avatar
    Velch

    Excellent article but most importantly encouraging.

    1. Joseph Avatar

      Thanks Richy. I am highly encouraged. Please help share with someone.

      Stay safe and cheers.

  10. Augustus Avatar
    Augustus

    ….Failure can be a stepping stone and it can be a great ingredient for success…

    Being certain of my target but failures keep bumping my path to deter my faith, sometimes I get reminded even by people: you have failed here & there….yet I am certain of my target.

    This editorial is the perfect encouragement that my failures never meant I have failed but another opportunity to try differently…

    1. Joseph Avatar

      Thanks Dasilva. Failing is steps to success.

      After Thomas Edison succeeded in inventing the light bulb after 2000 failed attempts, a young reporter asked him ‘how it felt to fail so many times’? He responded, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process”

  11. Chidinma Theresa Nwachukwu Avatar
    Chidinma Theresa Nwachukwu

    Thanks so much for this encouraging and educative massage. You made my day

    1. Joseph Avatar

      Thanks so much for leaving a very encouraging comment. I am happy the you enjoyed and benefited from the article. Please share with someone.

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