Each week, I receive at least one rejection email. That means that on average, I fail more than I succeed.
But here is why I love reading emails like these.
They make me angry. And anger is my fuel.
But its more than that.
Each time I face a rejection, time stops for a few moments. I temporarily disconnect from my environment and I get immersed into this abstract world of nothingness. For a few minutes, everything else and everyone else ceases to exist.
Then I experience a surge of anger radiating through my entire body. I feel a strong urge to hit something or someone - but I do not. At least most of the time. After a few minutes, I quickly make a decision to never experience this feeling.
It is after this that I set some of my biggest and most significant goals, and create a plan on how to go about achieving them. And in the course of this, I still experience some failure. But summate this and you get net success.
(Just a photo of me with the ladies at the Reviving Humanity Memorial in the City of Peace in Egypt. Ladies’ man, I know :))
See, the experience of failing at something is truly invaluable. It completely alters our frame-of-mind through the induction of pain. It makes us reflect on the real nature of things and their importance in our lives, transforming and improving our future-selves. Failure brings with it important firsthand knowledge.
Here are the main reasons why failure is important.
Knowledge
Failure brings with it important firsthand knowledge. That knowledge can be harnessed in the future to overcome that very failure that inflicted so much pain in the first place. Nothing can replace the knowledge gained from failure.
This makes it possible for us to know what to avoid in the future, making our future efforts more efficient, by eliminating what does not work. This is invaluable.
Resilience
Failing in life helps to build resilience. We become more resilient as we experience more failures. In order to achieve great success, we must know resilience. Because, if we think that we’re going to succeed on the first try, or even the first few tries, then we’re sure to set ourselves up for a far more painful failure. In the process, we develop “thick skin” which almost desensitizes us to similar experiences.
Growth
When we fail, we grow and mature as human beings. We reach deeper meanings and understandings about our lives and why we’re doing the things that we’re doing. This helps us to reflect and take things into perspective, developing meaning from painful situations.
So, if you have not been failing, start today! (Not intentionally, though. Dummy!)
However, you need to learn how to manage failure properly, turning it into fuel. Here are some of the best ways to handle failure.
1. Realize that it’s Okay to Fail
Although failure to us symbolizes pain, and we’ll do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure, we have to realize that it’s okay to fail. When we realize the importance that failure has played in the lives of the most successful people, it’s far easier to reach this understanding.
Failure will take you on a journey that you might not want to go on. But, the reality of the situation is that those journeys will help to mold and shape you into a better person.
2. Using Failure as Leverage
If you’ve failed in life, you can use that as leverage to not only recover from it, but to help propel you forward in the future. Failure can be a great a platform for growth that is simply unmatched.
To leverage your failures, you have to illuminate them to your mind. Write out what you failed at and why you failed. Did you have deep enough meaning to your goals in the past? What could you have done differently?
How will you tackle those failures in the future when you’re faced with them? How will you learn from the past to help shape a bigger and brighter future?
3. Create a Massive Action Plan
Want to recover from failure? Create a Massive Action Plan. Take your goals and lay out a plan as to how you’re going to achieve them. What will you do in the face of failure next time it rears its ugly head?
When we have a massive action plan, we have a systematic way of achieving the goals that we set for ourselves. Once we come to the realization that those goals won’t be simple to achieve, we can approach things with a more long-term frame-of-mind.
Remember:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill
If you wish to ask me some questions in person, or join my personalized mentorship program, message me here
Cheers!