Don't be afraid to fail

If there is one thing that keeps most people from reaching their potential it is the fear of failure. Many people are so afraid they will fail that they don't even make an effort to live up to their potential. Perhaps they have failed in the past. Maybe they are replaying those voices in their heads that told them from childhood that they would never amount to anything. Some have just been beat down by life so much that they have given up. Whatever the reason, this fear of failure controls the thinking and the lives of too many people.

No one enjoys failing. I certainly don't. I can get down with the best of them when I fail at something. But, I don't stay down, and I don't allow past failures keep me from trying again.

When I wrote my first book I sent a proposal to a publisher asking them to publish my book. A few weeks later I got a rejection letter. I sent it to another publisher. When their response came back weeks later they said they might publish it, but it would need a lot of work before they would make a final decision. I did the rewrites they suggested, but it was months before I sent it back to them. I was afraid of being rejected again. When they agreed to publish the book I cried. Had I not overcome my fear of failure that book, and the next seven, would have never been published.

It's important to recognize that we all fail at times. In fact, it's not uncommon to fail. Ted Williams has a lifetime batting average of .344, the best in Major League Baseball. The average batting average in 2017 was .248 so you can see what an accomplishment this is. Williams' average earned him a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, his batting average also reveals that almost two out of three times he got up to bat he failed to get a hit. Is he considered a failure because he made an out almost twice as often as he got a hit? Obviously not!

Brian Tracy writes, “According to the American Management Association, at least 70 percent of your decisions will turn out to be wrong in the fullness of time. This 70 percent figure is an average. Some people will be wrong even more often.” If we are going to be wrong so often we need to learn how to fail forward. In other words, we need to learn how to profit from our failures. Every failure carries with it knowledge that we can use at other times to increase our chances of success.

Research has found that high achievers typically experience at least three to four major failures and seven major successes in their careers. Obviously, they learned important lessons from the failures they experienced which they applied to future endeavors. It's also important to note that they didn't give up after their first failure. They persevered until they achieved the success they were seeking.

I encourage you to choose to fail forward. Don't fear failure, and don't give up when you do fail at something. If you'll press on you will eventually experience the success you seek.