How Strong is Your Failure Muscle?
From the moment we are born we are faced with the reality of failure, from learning to walk and falling flat on our face, to trying out for a high school sports team and not making the cut. Failure in business, just as in life, is unavoidable but it is not the failure we should focus on…it is how we respond to it.
Without failure, there would be no opportunities to learn from our mistakes. To grow and change, and to hopefully find new paths to success. Failure truly is a muscle all entrepreneurs need to exercise because no matter how organized and well thought out your plans are…at one time or another you will fail. By exercising your failure muscle, you will be better prepared for how to respond and continue moving forward instead of being trapped by the fear of failure.
Failure is not something that only happens to us externally. As psychologists point out, it can become a psychological internal barrier that we need to overcome to have success. Failure can leave you feeling worthless, overwhelmed, depressed, and helpless, plus cause you to create a mindset of the fear of failure itself. Many of those feelings are learned early on in life but what we seem to forget, is that without failure…there could be no success!
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” — Robert F. Kennedy
The most well-known entrepreneur to experience multiple failures before finally achieving success is Thomas Edison. He attempted to invent the lightbulb over ten thousand times before he finally succeeded but imagine if he had allowed the fear of failure to stop his progress. We may still be in the dark without his perseverance!
We are often taught that failure is unacceptable, that we must always succeed in order to have true success in life. This thought process can at times be learned from parents, teachers, friends, the media, and our own personal experiences while growing up. Trauma, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, procrastination, and even perfectionism can put up fear of failure barriers in our minds. To truly succeed in life and business, we must break down those barriers and come to the understanding that failure can and does open new doors, lead us in a better direction, and allow us to grow and move forward to better things.
Failure is actually very important! Look at all failures as mere practice in learning how to bounce back. Discover how to push forward, and get really good at flexing the failure muscle because every entrepreneur needs to develop strong failure muscles in order to find the silver lining and achieve success.
The glass half empty comes to mind. Do we choose to see our glass as half full or half empty…or do we choose to discover why the glass isn’t full to begin with, and find a new way to fill it? Exercising your failure muscle will allow you to discover new paths in life that you may not have discovered if you are stuck focused on the failure itself.
We cannot control all aspects of our lives and failure is one aspect that is destined to happen. Embrace it as a learning experience! Failure in business is inevitable, however, without the ‘shit’ hitting the fan…you may not see the new abstract art on the wall! Yes, a slightly gross analogy, but the art on the wall is merely a metaphor for new ideas and doors opening in place of failure.
Remember behind every successful entrepreneur is a multitude of failed attempts. Great examples include Henry Ford, whose first two car companies failed before he started the Ford company we know today; and Walt Disney, fired by a newspaper editor for “having no good ideas or imagination” before eventually creating the multi-billion dollar company Disney is today.
“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” — Walt Disney
In short, failure is the only path to success as one does not exist without the other. We are naturally designed to adapt and overcome as is seen throughout our history, and it is through our failures that we learn to grow and move forward in order to achieve success. Whether success is making the basketball team, creating the perfect recipe, or launching a complex business venture…failure is the muscle you must exercise in order to succeed!
Success isn’t achieved overnight…it is earned after countless failures, multiple setbacks, and a multitude of directional shifts. Use your failure muscle to propel you forward, draw on your strengths to lift yourself up, dust yourself off, and look ahead at the newly opened door!
You may just be surprised at the opportunity awaiting you just around the next failure!
