My inspiration this week came from my friend Jessica at No One Gets Flowers For Chronic Pain and her post on Famous Failures. She shares that she does not agree with the term “failure”.
We are taught this word at such a young age even before we are given exams and quizzes that are either: pass or fail. But does failing anything make you a “failure?”
–No One Gets Flowers for Chronic Pain
What is failure?
This is something that I’ve had strong beliefs about for as long as I can recall. I don’t believe there is such a thing as failure. What many call failures, I call learning experiences. There have been many times in my life where things did not turn out as I would have hoped or as I had planned, but does that mean that I failed? I don’t believe that it does. Now, if things went a way other than how I had hoped or expected and I did not learn anything from it, that would be a failure. If I did not choose to get back up and try again in a different way, or try something different, that would be a failure.
When it comes to my health there have been many learning experiences. Looking back I can say that I wish I’d done many things differently, but that doesn’t make the decisions I made failures. I learned from every one of them and I am continuing to learn. What’s most important is what I do with what I learn. In some cases it’s too late to help myself, because I can’t change the past. This is why I feel it’s so important to share what I learn. If one person can learn from my experience, that is one person who will be saved from having their own learning experience.
The only time we truly fail is when we are afraid to try. We can’t learn if we never try. Keep trying.
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Valda Garner says
Hi! Yeah, the “old” saying that failure isn’t Ann option is way outdated. Now it’s that failure is expected and learning will flourish. Great post!
Julie says
I guess it could still be said that failure isn’t an option… it’s not an option to miss the goal and not learn from it. 🙂 Thank you for the great feedback.