Show
me a satisfied man and I will show you a failure. Show me also a man who has
not failed once in life and I will show you a mediocre. It is difficult to be
great without being once; for those that must know how to stand well must also
know how to fall. Almost all the great men who have recorded substantial
success in different fields of life have failed at one time or the other.
If
you can acquire failure quotient (FQ), then you have the ingredients to be a
winner in whatever field you enter. Failure Quotient is the ability to fail and
to bounce back from failure to success, which is, allowing your failure to be
your teacher. Consider what Stan Toler said, “Don’t plan to fail, but plan to
learn from your mistakes.” That is why we say that experiences or mistakes are
the best teacher. A wise man learns from his experience.
Failure
isn’t fatal rather; it sharpens your brain and makes you recognize your errors
for onward perfection. It can be a valuable experience when you learn from it.
The experience will teach you how to react to similar or different cases in
future and you will be better for it. The only real mistake is failure to learn
from your mistake. That is why Aldous Huxley pointed out that, “Experience is
not what happens to us but what we did with what happened to us.”
Oswald
Avery advises: “Whenever you fall, pick something up.” Remember that on His way
to Calvary, Christ fell thrice and on each occasion got stronger and more
determined. Thomas Edison adds: “People are not remembered by how many times
they failed but how often they succeeded.” Capture what Napoleon Hill said,
“Temporary defeat is but a testing ground which may prove a blessing in
disguise if it is not accepted as final.”
Do
not be despondent or despair. Despite the extent of your failure, never give
up. Keep hope alive. The worst response to failure is to become discouraged or
quit. As I mentioned earlier, “Our greatest glory does not lie in never
falling, but rising each time we fall.”
I
want you to know that each failure is an opportunity for you to grow. Tom
Hopkins told us that, “The single most important difference between champions
and average people is their ability to handle rejection and failure.” Be
informed that, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the
time of comfort but where he stands in the time of crisis and hardship.”
Failure
should be seen as a postponed success. The ability to view it (failure) with
optimism creates the power that transforms failure to success. Ponder these
words of Robert H. Schuller in your mind; “That you failed doesn’t mean that
you are failure; it means you haven’t succeeded yet. It doesn’t mean you’ll
never make it; it means it will take a longer time. It doesn’t mean you don’t
have what it takes to make it; it means you have to do something in a different
way. It doesn’t mean you are inferior; it means you are not perfect. It doesn’t
mean you have been disgraced, it means you were willing to try. It doesn’t mean
you should give up; it means you must try harder.”
Once
bitten, twice shy. When you fail or when you have not succeeded, you will need
to re-strategize by first examining the possible causes of your failure. Then
tackle them one after the other. The only person who doesn’t have to re-strategize
constantly is the person whose life has come to equilibrium with its
surroundings (a dead person).
Until
you confront the problem, there will be no solution. Let us reflect on this
statement of Abraham Lincoln, a one-time President of America, “My great
concern is not whether you have failed but whether you are content with you
failure.”