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This is a guest post by Ritu, writing from the U.S.
“Failure is the first step to success.”
This is one of those quotes that we hear and say quite often, but how often do we realize its importance or live by this mantra? Seldom. I myself have tried and have been trying for couple years to secure a fruitful future as an online entrepreneur. I have failed a couple times and it has only made the desire to succeed even stronger.
I remember a show I was watching on TV (I don’t remember the name of the show as it was quite a while ago) where a man was talking about how he became a millionaire. The most notable thing? He had gone bankrupt just a year ago.
I will try and highlight some points as to why failure can be the biggest step towards your success.
Getting Up Requires Falling
If a nine month old gave up trying to walk after his first fall, he would never be able to walk again, simply because he gave up. We can relate this to our career and/or business as well. To succeed in doing something we need to realize that we are going to fall. It’s not the falling part that’s hard, it’s the getting up.
The only way we can learn to rise is when we have been through certain circumstances. When we know what we did wrong in the first place, when we have tried every known method that’s exactly when it will dawn on us – the right way to get up. Success depends on you. If you have fallen time after time, its time to build a different strategy for getting up, you will succeed!
It’s a Motivational Booster
“Mom, Dad, I did it! I failed in Math last test but got an A this time around. I know I can do it better now.” That’s just an example but I do hope it gets the point across. Achieving something after failing is like getting the biggest reward. You fail once but if you are determined in what you are doing, the only one to stop you from succeeding is yourself.
Motivation can come from influences and contacts but, personally, I think the biggest motivation comes from failure itself. So next time you fail, just think of how you can do it better. I can assure you, you will feel much better doing it the second time and getting it right. Not to mention, second time around it will be a lot easier better as you apply a lot more things that you didn’t in the first place.
You Will Have Strategies and Wisdom To Share
The other thing that you can get out of failure is wisdom and new strategies that you can apply to make previous failures a success. Your own experience can save others time when trying something similar to what you did.
Like I’ve written at the beginning of the post: “The most notable thing? He had gone bankrupt just a year ago.” A success from a failure gains much more recognition and the reason behind it is simple – you were wise enough to give it another try and implement a different strategy.
All in all, it comes down to how you take failure. Either you can make it a step to success or a retreat from it. It’s all within you. Remember: you are what you make of yourself – someone who failed and gave up or a failure to success story, the choice is yours.
Next time you think about quitting your online ventures after a failure, think again! It just might be the thing you needed to give yourself a boost.
If there were no failures there would be no successes, either!
If you have any stories to share with us, please feel free to continue the conversation in the comments section. Share your strategies and wisdom and help us make better decisions.
Until Next Time,
Ritu
(Ed: “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein)
Ritu is just a normal guy who blogs about blogging, productivity, networking and much more at www.worknplay.net.
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17 Comments, Comment or Ping
turtie
wasn’t expecting to see you post here ritu! good for you! great post. i found it quite inspiring and motivational.
Jan 21st, 2008
Goal Setting College
Nice post, Ritu. Failure’s one of the reasons many people succeed because of the insights and new knowledge they draw from the experience. Really glad to see you put the message across again.
And in such one of the newest, fastest growing site like Anywired.com. I can see the fire in you to succeed! All the best, pal…
Cheers,
Ellesse
Jan 22nd, 2008
sueri
great post. Thanks for that, Ritu.
I got strength from your writting.
Your are right. The choice is ours. Whenever I fall, I will try to get up with my wisdom.
Jan 22nd, 2008
Hunter Nuttall
Failure is absolutely the beginning of success! It’s like how Babe Ruth had both the most home runs and the most strikeouts. If you never give yourself the chance to fail, you never give yourself the chance to succeed either.
Jan 22nd, 2008
Lovelyn
The willingness to get up again and try once you’ve fallen is what separates those that are truely successful in life and those that aren’t. It’s imporant to learn from your failures and not let them discourage you.
Jan 22nd, 2008
Justin
I’ve found that most people are too chicken to fail. Thanks for the great post!
~J
Jan 22nd, 2008
Lidija Davis
Hey Ritu - great post!
Like I said on Fiar’s post on Work n Play
Didn’t Thomas Edison once say “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”
Tis true–getting up is the trick!
Jan 22nd, 2008
Mike Cruz
achieving fortune without setback is usually squandered as people tend to assume that it regaining that past success will be easy. Failure is part of the recipe of success….great post.
Jan 22nd, 2008
marti garaughty
Such words of wisdom Ritu. The fear of failure paralyses many people and often prevents them from ever getting started.
I’ve learned more from my failures than my successes and I’m thankful for each and every one of them.
If I didn’t fail so much when I began, I would never have learned some really important lessons… not to mention develop a very thick skin!
Jan 22nd, 2008
Chad | ProFreelancing
The people who are least successful are the ones that are most afraid to fail.
It’s like the 25 year old guy who has never had a girlfriend…because he’s afraid of a girl saying “no” when he asks her out.
If you want to be successful then you need to be willing to take the risk. Not every girl will say “yes”, but you only need one, right?
In the same way, not every investment or business opportunity will be a huge success, but if you keep on taking them and working hard then you’ll eventually find something that works and you’ll be better for it.
Jan 22nd, 2008
Evan
Well,
Failure can kill motivation. How are we to prevent this happening?
If we are to learn from failure, how are we to do this?
It is just as important to learn from success. And if we can learn a good way to do things (only possible in known and predictable situations) then we don’t need to fail.
In my view it is OK for failure to hurt. If we can feel the hurt we may be able to move on from it. Trying to ignore it just saps our energy in my experience.
Jan 22nd, 2008
Evan
A good book that deals with how the enduringly successful respond to failure is Success Built to Last by Porras, Emery and Thompson.
Well worth reading.
Jan 22nd, 2008
Ritu
@ Goal Setting College : Thanks for the kind words. I am very thankful to Skellie for giving me the opportunity to write on, like you said, one of the fastest growing blogs.
@ Sueri : Glad you enjoyed the post!
@ Hunter Nuttall : Yup! Babe Ruth is a baseball legend and look at all the strikeouts he had. Failure can certainly help us make better and reach for the impossible.
@ Lovelyn : “The willingness to get up again and try once you’ve fallen is what separates those that are truely successful in life and those that aren’t.” I agree. This is what separates quitters from winners.
@ Justin and Lidija : Thank you for sharing your views and comment on the post.
@ Mike : “Failure is part of the recipe of success”. Well said. Failure can become a very big part in success like the guy I talked about in the post. Can you imagine being a millinoaire within a year after you went bankrupt? There’s got to be failure somewhere in that recipe.
@ Marti : Thank you for sharing your views and congrtaulations on developing the thick skin
. Sometimes we really do need to develope a thick skin in order to get past the failure.
@ Chad : Hummm, I never thought of it that way. Interesting thoughts there.
@ Evan : I agree that failure can kill motivation. But again this is why we need to learn that failure as a part of success. Like I said in the post, it all depends on how we look at it. We can either use it as a motivational booster or just be a quitter.
Thanks for recommending the book “Success Built to Last by Porras, Emery and Thompson.” I am heading over to Amazon to look for it
Jan 22nd, 2008
Ruchir
That’s very true. Not a single successful person on the planet has seen success without failing. When you fail, you learn what doesn’t work and you make sure not to do it in the future. And as you said, it’s about getting up again after tasting defeat. Most people don’t do that as they’re afraid of failure and never taste success, as a result…
Jan 23rd, 2008
Pascale
Great post indeed.
Very inspirational.
I have tried to give to my French readers the essentiel ideas of this post and what they could do to give their children this way of thinking.
Thanks for your two blogs by the way. great work.
Jan 23rd, 2008
tarun
failure -beginning to success is the mantra to succedd in life thats true .there are many xamples in life which prove dis instant.BUT do we really meant it.seldom…
we jus hear abt it and leave it
nt one who learn it and go with it is d one who is at top in life.
there are many xamples say of a toddler baby who dont know how to walk and crawl .bt he never gives up and one day he finds happiness in fact that e is succedded in his goal of being on his feet;.wts d way to success after being failed in achieving goal .the thing is one need to learn from his her mistakes.he need to learn wat factors were responsible for his failure wat was there in his strategy which lead to his failure in achieving goal and learn from it and try to avoid this.then lets see how cum he is not succeeded in life.every one meets failure in his life at one stage or other bt the better one is d one who learn from it and try to be better.it is often said d people who are least successful in life are those who are afraid of failure.one must remember who is he …..he is d one who can dishearten himself from failure and go into dumshell or one who come roaring for success after one fallure.failure is aone if thorn in otherwise life of full of bed of roses.and d one who overcome it enjoy his rest of life and one who jus afraid of it is one who remain there at his life never enjoying life to fulest.
Feb 24th, 2008
Rahul
This was really helpful . I’m guy to tried to have a tough skin for failures ,it was wrong on my side to be tough cos i dnt allow to my heart to ache and i dnt learn anything from the those set backs . But now i reached a stage ,i’m ready for the pain so that i can change , i really want to change plan new ways . I think this failure is goin to help me lot in my future. Ritu god made you post this for me thanks lot.
Apr 20th, 2008
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