"If you've never failed, you've never lived."
This was written by an absolutely phenomenal occupational therapist Andi Bengis she has a blog of her own called I don't want to be stressed and this was one of her posts. It is something that everyone can relate to and definitely something that deserves to be shared...
Og Mandino, the author of numerous books including The Greatest Salesman on Earth said, “Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.”
We live in a world where there are so many expectations placed on us to succeed and a large amount of those expectations are from ourselves. This crazy drive for perfection.
We want our relationships to always work. We want to succeed in our careers. We want to be brilliant parents, outstanding scholars and upstanding members of the community. And most of all, we want to be recognized and acknowledged for all of the wonderful things that we do. And that doesn’t leave any room for failure, or for things going wrong or not according to your great and wonderful plan.
If you believe in perfection, then there is a good chance that you believe that failure is a bad thing, something to avoid at all costs. So, it is interesting that when Mandino was asked what the secret of success was, he answered, “You should triple your rate of failure”
When you make mistakes, you learn from them. You learn not to be afraid of failure. You become a stronger person when you realize that you have overcome all of the obstacles that you were so afraid of.
And of course, how do we recognize perfection if we haven't actually seen the other side? How do you know that something is really working if you haven't felt what it feels like for things to be falling apart?
It is said that "a head full of fears has no space for dreams." So fear of failure doesn’t allow you to live those dreams, achieve those goals and stand tall through adversity. Fear of failure keeps us in our safe comfort zones where we are stuck and frustrated and unmotivated.
Get out there! Fail! Live your life without fear because every time that you do, a seed is planted that is going to help you grow into something magnificent.
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