Have you failed today?

Society drills into us that failure is bad, something to avoid, something to be ashamed of or a poor reflection on us. We are told this by those that have made the decision to quit their journeys early. If the truth be told, these same folks took their eye of their goal and placed them onto the challenge in front of them; then they began justifying their position: too much work, look what 'they' did, the circumstances, the plan didn't work. They will very rarely tell you the truth, that they lost belief in themselves, and they chose to quit. That was their journey and choice, not yours.

Yet when you rub elbows with those that are successful, the overcomers, you hear a very different message. They will tell you that your failures are the tuition for your success. Failure is required by success and is an invitation to grow personally. You find these overcomers openly talk about their failures and the lessons learned, they are not ashamed, embarrassed, or looking for an excuse to quit their journey. They understand that all failures are simply stepping stones to their successes. Sir Winston Churchill is quoted as saying, “Success Is going from one failure to another with no loss in enthusiasm”.

Failure is an event, NOT a person. These events provide us with critical lessons, then they fade into the past and it is the lesson that should be remembered. Failure is not something to keep you away from your successes, it is actually an invitation for you to continue your journey, to become better than you were yesterday.

If we are afraid to fail, then success will consistently remain just out of our reach. My bride asked me, “what have you failed at today”? It wasn’t meant to be negative but to ask me ‘what have I tried today, that I have never done before”? She was encouraging me to try things outside of my comfort zone, and to see what wonderful places it could take us.

The overcomers all say we learn more from our failures than we ever would from our successes, I would agree with them hands down.

Without our failures there would be no price to pay for success, and success would be taken for granted; it would be valueless. It is the failures on our journey that establish the price that must be paid, they don’t determine how far you are going to go, You do. Sometimes the price is more than everyone else is willing to pay, but this is not their journey, it is yours. The price you pay for your success is a discussion you are required to have with yourself, no one else.