Failing is Not Losing.
Failure is an event, not a person. Zig Ziglar
Great leaders leave indelible footprints in the passage of time, often spanning generations; unmistakable evidence; markers of where they have been.
Regardless of when, and where they walk, great men and women leave their footprints; revealing with clarity their spirit, courage and the direction they were going; along with encouragement to follow in their footsteps.
Failure is no stranger to most people.
All of us have experienced events during our lives where our plans didn’t eventuate, our hopes were dashed or our objectives not reached.
Failure comes in many guises, often dressed up and presented as someone else’s problem, or masked as being unavoidable or even an Act of God, as though God had some divine interest in seeing us fail.
Failure can beset anyone, anywhere and at any time, and for most people these occurrences are just part of life; booked down to experience; and even seen as character building.
Critically, for some of us the aftermath of failure, if not addressed carefully and properly managed can be traumatic and have a long tail; it can influence our future potential and opportunities to such a degree that we are forever limited.
If we allow it to be so.
Though failures need not destroy our potential, their ability to be misunderstood, to assume power beyond their measure and to become personalized is very real. Failure can take on tangible dimensions in people’s lives to the extent that it places seemingly impenetrable walls around their capabilities.
For some, to fail is to admit defeat; to take upon themselves the stigma of being a loser and assume the position of someone who is forever after unable to use initiative, unable to reach out, unable to take risks, to innovate or do anything outside their comfort zone.
Failure to these people is like wearing manacles that restrict their movement, their ability to perform or do anything. Perhaps then it is not surprising that failure and fear are close allies, working together and often hunting in packs.
To many, the impact of failure extends to feeling trapped and dependant on others; independence and self-confidence are early casualties of failure.
Inevitably failure is a matter of perspective. Some people who get knocked down by it simply get back up on their feet, dust themselves off and start again; yet some become fixated on the fact of failing, consumed with the details of their shortcomings and unable to rise above it.
Whilst difficult for some to reconcile, it is a fact that difficulties and failures do happen in life. Many great leaders have experienced multiple failures before tasting success. The great innovator Thomas Edison declared, after having failed yet again at developing the electric light bulb, I’ve not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work!
Edison understood that to fail is not to be a failure. He knew that our past should never, ever dictate our future and just as events disappear into the past, so should our failures. Circumstances mitigate that some ideas fail; some strategies fail; some plans and tactics just fail-but never forget failure is an event, a thing, not a person.
Sometimes we just have to hang on, or move on.
Great leaders understand that past failures do not automatically mean future failure, but they do provide us with opportunities to learn, change and succeed. The great industrialist Henry Ford stated that failure is merely an opportunity to start again, more intelligently.
To this end, successful people understand that continuing with an endeavour that hasn’t worked without carefully considering the causes is a recipe for continued failure. Sometimes this is referenced as the definition of insanity: to continue doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different outcome.
Repeat failures can be minimized and often avoided altogether by ensuring that we have the right skill sets and resources to achieve our objectives.
Failure is an event, not a life curse or cause to condemn ourselves to mediocrity or worse. To understand this principle is to be released from a lifetime of limitations and fears; even better is to harness the benefits of our failures and use them to improve our future.
For instance, employment lore dictates that failures experienced along a professional or corporate journey are at best minimized in a CV, and at worst omitted completely. Yet integrity and good judgement dictate that these should be flagged, as evidence of our experience, stamina and ability to rise up in the aftermath of things that didn’t go to plan.
Great leaders understand that things don’t always go to plan, that failure sometimes happens and is not something to dwell on.
The footprints of great leaders, who saw into the future and spanned generations, who have previously travelled our paths will often reveal simply, yet profoundly, the principles of understanding what caused our failures and then moving on.
Author Neil Findlay
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