When Failure is Your Best Teacher

I remember hearing a coach say "You can't learn anything from winning, only losing." At the time I thought he was crazy, but over the years I believe that statement is true.

Nobody grows up wanting to fail, but failure is inevitable. Even if you're risk-adverse at some point you'll experience defeat. Because it's not "if," but "when" you'll encounter failure so here are some ways to shift your thinking when it comes to failing.

There are no overnight success stories. There is so much hard work put in behind the scenes that no one will ever know except the person going through it. Have you ever heard the quote, "Success is 99% failure?" If that's true it's a "numbers" game. That means the more times you try, the greater chance you'll eventually succeed (with a lot of failure along the way).

Failure has such a negative connotation to it, but maybe you should start looking at failure as a part of the journey to succeed. The better you are able to cope with and embrace failure, the less rejection and losing will sting. Most risk-takers become numb to failure because they know it's just part of the process.

Now don't misinterpret failure by attempting to experience it daily. Knowing what you should avoid and not repeating the same mistake next time around will lead you to victory. The more ambitious your goal, the more arduous the process. Any great accomplishment will encounter setbacks along the way. What matters and what you can actually control is how hard you go at it and how determined you are to try new methods and along the way.

There's nothing worse than functioning by insanity (doing the same thing over and expecting different results). If you're willing to fail, then success isn't too far ahead.