Failure doesn’t exist in my universe. That doesn’t mean I always succeed at everything. But I never fail either.
How? Simple, I don’t believe in failure.
It’s a matter of perspective. Let’s say you bought a dartboard today and threw your first dart. It missed the mark. Are you going to say you failed? Most likely not, because it was only your first dart throw. You’re yet to learn to throw darts with precision.
How about if it’s your fiftieth throw and you’re still missing the mark? Perhaps you’re calling it failure now. But why? Are you not leaning anymore? Why did your perspective change since the first throw?
When you miss the mark, there are two ways to look at it. Either you can say you failed. Or you are learning from it. And there is always going to be learning. You can always make adjustments and try to do better in the next attempt. It’s up to you to either derive the learning or call it a failure.
Every so-called failure is a learning experience. A stepping stone to success. It doesn’t matter how long is the chain of unsuccessful attempts.
No one is born with all the skills to achieve success on the first go. Success takes practice. And practice looks the same as failing, except you have the choice to view it as practice and learning instead.
Eliminate the Word Failure
Eliminate the word failure from your vocabulary. Never use it for yourself. You never fail. You’re always learning. There will be things you’ll learn quickly, and there will be things that will take a long time to learn. But every time you “fail” you will take notes, try to do it better and improve.
Sometimes the improvement will be so marginal that you won’t even notice it. But it will show as enough time passes. It’s impossible to not improve with persistence.
There will also be times when you’ll decide to give up on something. But even that won’t be because you failed at it. It will be because you’ll realize it’s not worth investing so much time on. That’s a learning in itself.
Whether to call something a failure is your choice. If you say you failed, you’ll feel like a failure. And if you feel like one, that makes you prone to failing more. Mindset is everything.
People with the Winner’s mindset never view themselves as a failure, so they never fail. Winners see every failure as an opportunity to learn and improve themselves—because that’s what it is.