Most of us feel like a failure at one time or another. Some of us feel like a failure all the time!  And many of us FEAR FAILURE so we stay clear of anything that might lead down that path to it. Interestingly….over time it still seems to plague us regardless of our efforts to avoid it.

What is failure, if doing nothing still results in us feeling like a failure?

How did we come to think of ourselves as such failures and how do we overcome it?

If failure is on the other end our effort to achieve something, then let’s go back to our first year of life when we first tried to achieve something…to walk. The first time we didn’t succeed at walking and we fell down, did our parents call us a failure? I am a parent and know that is ridiculous! I would never say that to my child or even think that of them! I cheered them on and was so happy for the EFFORT they made!!

All of us, when we were first learning how to walk, kept on getting back up to take action and achieve the goal of walking. Sometimes when we fell, we were frustrated and cried for a bit, but with some love and encouragement we got over it. We didn’t give up! We persisted, some with more persistence than others, but we soon achieved our goal.

So if failing so many times over and over again, just like a child learning how to walk, doesn’t make them a failure, but in fact, it leads them to achieve their goal, then why is it any different with anything else that we want to achieve?

Simply put, a one-year-old is far more persistent and good at achieving the things they want, their goals, than most people today!!

So what happened to us? Why did we stop being persistent? Why do many of us quit after we fail at our first attempt or even the third attempt?

A lot of things happened to drive that persistence out of us through the years and make us view failing as being bad. From kids making fun of us, bad marks on tests that determined if we were good at a subject or bad, less encouragement and cheering for the hard efforts we were making and so on. Basically, we had a lot more negative emotional experiences with the efforts to achieving something than positive ones. More focus was put on the result

By observing a child learning how to walk we can learn these three important steps to succeed by embracing failure…

1. SEE IT and DESIRE IT

The child sees everyone else walking all around him, every day, all the time. The child obviously starts thinking to himself’ “If they can do it, so can I”. He sees the benefits of walking and soon this child wants to walk so bad that he/she will go through the pain of falling down over and over again until they are walking.

What do we learn from this? It starts in your mind.

What is it you desire? God has put desires within each of us for things He has created us to do and to be. Think about it! Don’t ignore it! See it in your mind. Picture it.  BELIEVE YOU CAN!  Surround yourself with visuals of it so that the desire becomes so strong you will go to great effort to achieve it, even if it means failing over and over again till you succeed.

2. TAKE PERSISTENT ACTION!

Put the effort in to achieve that which you desire! Pray, make a plan, set the time aside, treat it with importance. BELIEVE YOU CAN!!

Embrace the failures along the way! Failures prove you are taking ACTION!! Don’t let failure stop you from taking action, but let it guide you when you need to be guided. So many have let the fear of failure stop them in life that they are living a life that is accustomed to not taking action and they don’t know the difference anymore.

Through the years of experience from homeschooling my children and just being a parent, I always told my kids that their mistakes were part of the PROCESS OF LEARNING. It shows where you need to improve, or what you still need to learn and work on. Many times, I would have to remind myself of that very thing! When you do fail, take time to evaluate what went wrong, what you learned and how you can improve.

3. DON’T GIVE UP

Stay the course. BELIEVE YOU CAN!!

When it gets hard to keep getting back up, make sure you have people surrounding you that will encourage you. Stay clear of the ones that are negative and want you to quit. Take time to listen to God’s truth about who you are each day. Listen, write it down, and speak it.  BELIEVE YOU CAN!!  This is so important!! We don’t have those loving parents around us cheering us on every day, and some of us never have had that. But it is a crucial ingredient to reach our goals!!  When there is no one around us to believe in us, then it needs to come from above and within.

We only truly fail when we give up and stop the process that is supposed to happen to get us to our goals!

If you change your thinking about failure then it will help you grow stronger, learn more, be wiser, and achieve the things you take action on.