It is only a failure when you give up. You have heard this, right?
Easy to remember in retrospect and more difficult to stay in touch with when we are face to face with less than stellar results. It so easy to think that our failure really is a cosmic message that we need to throw in the towel and do something less than extraordinary.
The article is to help you keep your perspective so that you can reach the heights you wish to reach.
Purpose: Take a moment and pick out three major failures in your life. Who would you be or what would be true for you if you did not have these experiences? If you have managed to fail forward, then chances are you feel that they served a purpose. If you have gotten stuck it might be a little harder.
Quantity: How many mistakes do you make in the course of the day? Did you drop something, forget something, or trip? Did you do less than a great job on an important task, go the wrong way and get lost?
Mistakes are little failures that are a part of every day. How much we beat ourselves up about these little mistakes determines how much they have a negative impact on our day. This is the same with the big stuff as well. If we can resist the urge to mentally hold onto past set back whether large or small, they cease to have the same impact.
Ambivalence: We really don’t know whether our experience counts as a mistake or failure. In fact, there is really no such thing. The only way that failure exists is as a concept not as a reality. So give up judging your experience and just learn from it and keep moving.
