The 5 Benefits of Failing Forward.

byMoney10one

90 followers

3 years ago

I’ve been on my Affiliate Marketing journey for around 4 months and to be honest it’s been a rough ride. Getting my head around the training, processes and jargon leaves me feeling like a ‘deer in headlights’ at times. So, to those fellow travelers that feel some confusion and panic remember you are not alone.

We live in a world conditioned to avoid failure at all costs, but when it comes to success, failure is maybe one of the most important experiences you will embrace in your life. In this blog I want to talk about the importance of embracing failure and how it can be used as a steppingstone to success. As the leadership guru John C Maxwell says,

“The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.”

Why Failure is Important?

Can you remember when you were a small child? There was always a discussion during breaktime about what you wanted to be when you grow up. “I’m going to be a firefighter; me, I’m going to be a doctor”. Today years later we fondly still remember the excitement we had but years of not achieving have left us fearful and disillusioned. There are two possible courses of action to take today: you can try your best to avoid your fear and inaction, or you can fail forward by quickly bouncing back from the experience and using what you learned from it to make better decisions in the future. With a little bit of education and guidance, achieving your dreams is only a matter of time.

It's time to look your failure in the eye and forge ahead.

The First Benefit of Failure is that it Helps us Learn.

Learning from our failures is the first step in achieving success. So don't give up, keep learning, and keep going. It takes a lot of courage and tenacity to keep striving when life throws you a curveball. But those who do persevere often come out on top in the end. Abraham Lincoln is proof that failure doesn't always have to be the end. His early life reads fairly miserably. He failed in business in 1831, suffering a nervous breakdown in 1836, was defeated in his race for president in 1856, Abraham Lincoln was no stranger to rejection and failure but rather than taking these failures as a reason for surrender, he refused to stop trying until in 1861 when he was elected as the 16th President of the United States of America.

Are you ready to find your lost success?

The Second Benefit of Failure is that it Strengthens our Resilience.

Maybe you’re feeling tired, unmotivated, and stressed out. I get it. But take courage, you don't have to keep living like this. We don't get stronger by avoiding our weaknesses; we get stronger by identifying the root of the problem and repeatedly solving them." So, like Michael Jordan the NBA superstar who famously said “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed”, we take action and challenge ourselves because it was years of effort, practice, and failing forward that made the star we know today.

It's time to build a stronger you.

The Third Benefit is that it Teaches us How to Move on from Blocking Situations.

If you want to conquer your feelings of failure, you will need to acknowledge where they come from and then decide how you want to react when they show up again. Failure may be one of the most difficult things to learn to live with, but it can be an indispensable teacher. It's important to persevere even when you fail because as you work towards your goals, failing forward will highlight obstacles that you may have missed in the past. Oprah Winfrey grew up under the shadow of abuse, poverty, and neglect and these obstacles could have overwhelmed her, but she is quoted saying that “The greatest discovery of all time, is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.”

Remove your obstacles and seize your opportunity.

The Fourth Benefit is Learning What Needs Improvement.

It's easy to get discouraged when you don't see immediate results from your efforts but as we acknowledge our failure, you’ll find that staying the course is much more rewarding than giving up. Knowing where to improve helps you take action towards those goals. In addition, recognizing and overcoming your weaknesses makes them easier to manage. Ultimately, a weak point may not be easy to identify; however, there are plenty of effective strategies if you're willing to put in the work! Winston Churchill, the two-time British Prime Minister who led his country to victory in WWII and voted as the Greatest Briton by the people of the United Kingdom was considered anything but a great young student due to his struggles with dyslexia, commented that he was considerably discouraged by his school days,” It was not pleasant to feel … so completely outclassed and left behind.”

It takes adversity to create success.

The Fifth Benefit is Learning What's Wrong with Your Existing Processes and Methods so you Can Improve Them for Future Occurrences.

I may know what kind of obstacles you're facing in your life right now but whatever they are they do not define you. If you're willing to look at failure differently you have the potential to overcome as you learn to fail forward. Michael Oher grew up as one of 13 children, in a rough neighborhood in Tennessee. As a teenager, he bounced around between foster care and life on the street. However, through the support of an adoptive family, he was able to break out of the cycle of poverty, addiction, and hopelessness that trapped his family, and his life story was eventually capture on film called the Blind Side which starred Sandra Bullock. In his football career he came in second place in voting for The Associated Press' Offense Rookie of the Year and earned a Super Bowl ring after the Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers in 2013. Today, Michael spends time with his non-profit organization, Beat the Odds, Inc.

Start embracing your failure today and begin to create the success that has been eluding you

Conclusion

So, as we embrace the ‘good, the bad and the ugliness’ of failure may we continue to focus on our goals and not the obstacles. There may be days that we may need to look a little harder for something positive, but keep on learning, keep on reading, keep on writing, and keep on supporting each other. As Ed Cole to masterfully said, “You don’t drown by falling into water; you drown by staying there.”