Siddharth Mahajan
@thefitsidd
“I haven’t failed. I have just found 10000 ways that won’t work” said Thomas Elva Edison, one of the greatest inventors who invented light bulb. Unlike Edison, many of us fear the prospect of failure. Infact we are so focused on not failing that we don’t aim for success. More than failure it’s very thought actually what haunts us and stops us from taking a step forward. Fear of failure keeps us from trying, It’s something which actually creates self-doubt and stalls our progress.
Apparently wants to achieve success and avoid failure. Although many a time its said and believed, “Road to success is laid upon what you have learnt your past failures”
Would be to correct to say, to be successful one needs to accept and treat failures as stepping stone to success. Each failure directs you towards success. It’s a sign, a strong sign, that tells us to re-invent, re-develop and re-strategize. It’s certainly not something that’s needs to be avoided, rather a chance to learn from something that does not work, so we device and aim for a new strategy that works. Would be right to quote the biggest successes that have been failures or gone through biggest failures in life. To illustrate the point, here is a list of famous personalities who reached the pinnacle of success after continuous struggles and experienced failures to the core.
APJ Abdul Kalam- A newspaper seller who became the president of India. His 1st major project was launch of SLV-3 which failed in 1979. “Undeterred by the failure he later went on to become the Missile Man of India”.
Rajnikant – A carpenter, a coolie, a bus conductor who’s one of the highest paid actors in Asia and continues to rule Box office at the age of 71.
Dhirubhai Ambani- A bhajiwala and a clerk who became 1st Indian entrepreneur to be listed in Forbes 500 with $ 2.9 Billion worth (in 2002 upon his death)
MS Dhoni- A travel ticket examiner or TT, MS Dhoni went on to become one of the finest Indian captain, who led India to 2007 World T-20 victory, 2011-World Cup victory along with so many other victories
Shahrukh Khan- One of the most popular and highest paid Indian actors whose 1st salary was merely Rs 50 makes 12 Crores (approx.) a month.
Michael Jordan- Arguably the greatest basketball player ever and a living legend was cut from his high school team. MJ- the world’s most popular basketball player has a net worth of $ 2.2 Billion today.
Steve Jobs- Co-founder of Apple and probably one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our times failed many a times. Ironically in 1985 Steve Paul Jobs was fired from Apple- the company he started. He again became CEO of Apple & had 458 patents against his name, a third of which (141) were registered post his death in 2011.
Colonel Sandlers- KFC Founder Colonel Sanders, a Man who Started at 65 and Failed 1009 Times Before Succeeding. Truly amazing and inspirational is the story of this man, who choose not to accept failure. Today KFC is 4th largest restaurant chain in the world.
Few of the many traits that distinguish these celebrated and prominent personalities is of course the learnings from their failures and their desire to improve. On the contrary, as a society we see failure to be detrimental to success. Ever since we are young, we are taught to avoid failure. As a matter of fact we all come in contact with it and more often than not, we are not groomed to accept failures. Wherein we should be nurtured and groomed to accept failures as part of life and rather than getting de-motivated and discouraged we got to learn to embrace it and learn from it. Let’s talk of few take away’s from failure, few take away’s that make us learn from our failures.
Failure is Life’s Greatest Teacher
When we take a closer look at the great thinkers, philosophers & entrepreneurs throughout history, a willingness to take on failure isn’t a new or extraordinary thing. The truth is: everyone has failed, and everyone will fail again. We sometimes forget that all successful people have failed, but they did not stop after their failures. They stood up and tried again, time after time. When people are successful, we always focus on their success, not on the years of struggle, failure and trying again and again. We only see the bright side and forget the years and years of hard work, while those years mostly bring the most inspiring and motivational stories.
In the words of the great Nelson Mandela – “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
Reaching your Potential
When the rewards of success are great, embracing possible failure is key to taking on a variety of challenges, whether you’re reinventing yourself by starting a new business or allowing yourself to trust another person to build a deeper relationship. To achieve your personal best, to reach unparalleled heights, to make the impossible possible, you can’t fear failure, you must think big, and you have to push yourself. The same holds true in overcoming some specific challenge or reaching your full potential in all aspects of life.
As precisely quoted by Steve Jobs, “It’s impossible to fail, if you learn from your mistakes. Don’t Give up.”
With each fear, Fear it less
One of the biggest secrets to success is operating inside your strength zone but outside of your comfort zone. Although you might fail incredibly, you might success incredibly. That’s why incredible risk and courage are requisites. Either way you learn and that’s why with each failure, fear it less.
In the words of Winston Churchill- “Success is not final and failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts”.
To sum up, we need to learn from our failures each time, every time, to rise again, this time, with more experience and more intelligence. That’s how “failure is a Step forward”.
(The author is Fitness & Lifestyle Mentor )
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