Failure is defined as: an act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; lack of success. I decided a long time ago to remove the word failure from my dictionary. Why? Because I never fail. EVER.
You may ask, “how can I make such a bold statement?”
I make this bold statement because I believe that there is no failure, there are only experiences. An experience is acquired knowledge. From knowledge I learn and improve. Improvement is what makes me better at what I do.
I could have called myself a failure at networking. When attending social functions, I did not like to approach strangers and thought I had nothing to say. Afterwards, I thought I failed at my attempt at making new connections.
My spouse is great at networking. I have always admired her ability to easily talk to people. So I began to study how she did it. I started to listen to her conversations and watch her body language. She would start up a conversation and then bring me in. It was great. Problem solved, right? Nope.
I could not have her accompany me to every event. So she set a goal for me: three business cards. I had to bring home a minimum of three cards. Which meant that I had to approach, connect, and get to know three new people.
So I went to these events terrified as usual, but now I had a goal. I had the desire to get something done. At first I did not make my goal. I felt bad. But at the end of the evening I would think back on it and search for improvements. I began to see missed opportunities where I could have spoken to someone, sparked a conversation. I thought back on the common reason we were all there and came up with a statement or question I could have broken the ice with. I took my bad experiences and started to break them down with ideas for improvements. I analyzed the evening and took what happened and improved upon my efforts for the next event. Now I can go to any event, still be nervous, but think my way through it from all the past events I’ve attended and come home with a stack of cards.
From every experience there is always an outcome. This is a fact. There is usually the best outcome that we want to happen, this one is the one we call success. All others would be considered failures. But even that isn’t true.
We have all had an outcome of something turn out better then what we thought it would. We don’t call those failures. We actually get excited and think we are lucky that things turned out the way they did. We talk about them with great enthusiasm. We do not call these failures even though the outcome was not what we originally wanted. So why call the experiences that turn out against us failures?
I suggest that you take “failure” out of your dictionary and change the way you look at your experiences. All your experiences can be used to improve yourself and what you want to do. If you let them.