I’ve discovered in the last few months that I’m a podcast junky. I love listening to online coaching sessions that give me little nuggets I can implement to improve my performance at home, work, the gym, and in life. Lately, I heard a great phrase that stuck with me. I knew it would come in handy and it turns out I was right. With our first weekend of competitions and Spirit Spotlight freshly behind us, there couldn’t be a more perfect time for me to share it with all of you!
So here it is: Failure is not the opposite of success. Quitting is.
Whammo!! I heard that, and it was the quintessential Ah-Ha moment!
So often, we believe that because we lose a game or come in 2nd, we’ve failed. The speaker on the podcast did a great job of explaining that failure is a stop (or sometimes multiple stops) on the route toward success. When we fail, we learn. When we learn, we grow. When we grow, we improve our chances of winning. It’s only when we quit that we’ve experienced the opposite of success. Interesting!
Now with any good podcast, self-help book, or coaching session, it’s one thing to listen to the lesson. It’s another to apply it. I’ve challenged myself to see how often I see examples of this concept. The child who goes through four attempts at the math problem before finally arriving at the right answer. The parent who takes two hours of sweat, tears, and maybe some expletives putting together a Christmas present. The athlete who practices for countless hours in their sport, falls and gets back up, drops a stunt and tries again. All of them are shining examples of failing forward.
How will you fail forward this month?