How to Use Your Failures to Move You Forward

September 30, 2015

It n ever feels good to fail at something in life, but the truth is, failure WILL happen . And when it does, you have a choice. You can learn How to Use Your Failures to Move You Forward or let them stop you from achieving your dreams. Think about something you have failed at in life. How did you react to that failure, or respond to it? Did you pout, cry and give up on your dreams, or did you grow and learn from it and try another avenue? As long as you get back up you still have a chance to succeed.

How to Use Your Failures to Move You Forward:

1. Remember that failure is an event, never a person. When people see themselves as the failure, they tend to mentally beat themselves up to the point of no return. Meaning, they give up on their dreams, because they feel that THEY are the reason for the failure and it wasn’t meant to be. You were born to win. Otherwise, you would wake up every day with the desire to fail. In your failures, recognize that the particular avenue you took didn’t work for you, but another approach may work better. Therefore, it’s the event that failed….not you. You can still succeed, as long as you see yourself as a winner.

2. Use what you’ve learned from your mistakes to your advantage . With every failure comes a lesson. Look at what you did wrong and correct those actions. Also look at what you did right and continue to do so. Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Don’t let your obstacles become your excuses. With failure comes growth. You WILL pass failure on your way to success, so take the time to learn from it when you do.

3. Take actions to move you forward right away. Do NOT think you need to take time to recover from the failure. Don’t stop. Don’t cry over it. Don’t throw yourself a pity party. Write down what worked. Write down what didn’t. Write down your next plan of action and then GO FOR IT! If you don’t, someone else out there will work hard enough to achieve YOUR dreams. The moment you give up and say, “I can’t”, is the same moment that someone else says, “I can.” Getting back in the game right away is called perseverance, and obstacles develop perseverance.

Your failures can either move you forward, closer to your goals or stop you from ever reaching them. The obstacles you face on the way to success aren’t there to stop you…they exist to show you if you have what it takes to make it all the way. The choice is yours. Success or Failure. I don’t know about you, but I choose success.