Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Failing Forward

Yesterday morning I was talking to a friend, and I said to him “I think I’ve made all the mistakes I want to make in life” ... and he says whether you want to or not, we never stop making mistakes, and these mistakes will eventually make you a sage. Very wise words.

The same applies to failing. The more you fail, the better you become at what you failed at, because you have a catalogue of the ways not to do it. I will be the first to admit that I have a fear of failure. Not really because I think that life will be over if I fail at something, more because I feel like after putting in all the effort it’s only fair that you don’t fail at it. I just want to do great the first time, and skip all the in between phase. However the way to the greatest heights is through the greatest depths – “There are depths for heights”. If you are afraid of the depths, you *maybe* don’t deserve the heights #JustSayin’.

The truth is that you haven’t failed until you stop trying. “Winners lose more than losers do”, but they become winners, because they weren’t content to just call it a day. They sharpened their knives with their adversity, failures, misfortunes, and went in for the kill again.

It took 10000 tries for the light bulb; Alexander Fleming failed countless times before Penicillin; It took several attempts to put the first man on the moon; Before Boeing 747 there were the Wright brothers; Before Fashola there was ******. The truth is that the best inventions, the greatest minds, and the most formidable achievements / successes failed before they succeeded. I mean wouldn’t you flip the channel if you watched someone who made the greatest discovery after the first try – that’s no story.

So when you fail - try again, fail again, fail better.

Xoxo.

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