Author: Reza Boushehri (2018)
Remember to never give up on a dream, goal or desire you have because of the time it will take to accomplish or obtain it. That time will pass by anyway, whether you do something or not. Failures have a way of teaching us things that can be more valuable than if we were to achieve immediate success. There are a couple mental traps we can fall into – which I have been guilty of falling into – when getting stuck on a task.
1. I could be doing something much more useful than what I am doing now
This mentality would cause me to end up leaving whatever I was doing incomplete. I would end up not doing anything, but still notice that time was passing by.
2. Thinking of everything else as more fun and exciting than the task in hand
I would not concentrate and would constantly focus on the things I could do after I am done with this boring task.
In your life, whether now or at some point in the future, you will face some failures. There is no question as to whether or not you will face failures, challenges, and obstacles, but the real question is, how will you handle it?
There will come a time when you decide to propagate all the bad feelings you have due to the failure unto your very own character. There will come a time when you are so tired of everything, so exhausted by all the work you put in and didn’t get any results.
Successful people, those who have reached the pinnacle of what they personally define as success, have gotten there because of their failures, not their success. That’s right, I will repeat that, it is your failures which allow your success to happen.
Think of success as a huge lake you have to cross while failure being the stepping stone on which you can travel to the other end. As a huge and global society, we have come to view success as something that does not include or consist of any failure. We have come to believe that failure is something very bad. Yes, it can turn bad if you decide that you are tired, can’t take it anymore and want to quit. Yes, it’s bad if you decide to not learn anything from it.
On the other hand, failure can be your friend as well. It can come from learning from what you previously did wrong. It can be the key to making you what we call a wise man. Remember, we are all made better when faced with resistance and difficulty.
Let me put it in another way: when you go to the gym, you are demanding your body to grow, you are pushing, constantly pushing against resistance in order to achieve that. Similarly, the more you try something, the more you will fail and hence try again, until you finally master it.
The key is to “try again”, the key is to “learn from your mistakes.” Master these two keys when faced with failure, and you will realize that it is your friend.