Never forget this truth: Most failures won’t kill you.
We vastly exaggerate the effects of failure. We blow the prospects of failing all out of proportion. Failing is not the end of the world. The fear of failure is far more damaging than failure itself.
As a proverb says, “No matter how often honest people fall, they always get up again.” Even “good” people stumble. They make mistakes, mess up, and fail.
Successful people are not people who never fail. They’re people who get up and keep going. Successful people just don’t know how to quit!
History books are filled with stories of people who failed again and again, but they did not give up until they succeeded. Have you ever heard of these famous failures?
- George Washington lost two-thirds of all the battles he fought. But he won the Revolutionary War and later became the first U.S. president.
- Napoleon graduated 42nd in a class of 43. Then he went out and conquered Europe.
- In 21 years, Babe Ruth, one of the best baseball players ever, hit 714 home runs, but he struck out 1,330 times. He struck out nearly twice as often as he hit a home run. For years, he held the records both for most home runs and for the most strikeouts.
- John Creasey, the famous novelist, received 753 rejection letters before he published 564 books.
- Albert Einstein didn’t say a single word until he was almost five years old. He did so poorly in school that, at age 16, he failed to pass the entrance exam for the Swiss Polytechnic School. Still, he went on to reinvent science and math.
Great people are simply ordinary people who have an extraordinary amount of determination. They just keep on going. They realize they’re never a failure until they quit.
That’s how you reduce your fear of failure. You redefine it.
You don’t fail by not reaching a specific goal. Instead, failure is not having a goal. Failure is refusing to get back up again once you fall. It’s refusing to try.
So, when you fail, keep going. If you don’t succeed at first, it’s no big deal. You’re never a failure when you don’t give up.
Let’s ponder some questions to help you put this into practice.
- Who is someone you admire because of how they have dealt with failure? What makes that person admirable?
- What big goal have you been afraid to pursue because you thought you would fail?
- What helps you and motivates you to keep going when you face possible failure?
Leave a reply below and let me know what you think.
Excerpt taken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren.