When I was head of a committee in my hall at the university, I was poised to make a difference by way of organising programs to address pertinent students issues. The first program organised was very successful in terms of the turn up. The second program was utterly a failure in terms of attendees. With a provision for over 150 chairs, there were more chairs than humans. In a review meeting after the program, a team member made a blanket statement that we have failed. ‘On the surface we had failed, yet deep down, there were lessons to learn,’ I thought to myself. You cannot succeed without failing. Here are three lessons I learnt from this episode.
#1. Failing Comes With Success
People can’t just understand why they must fail after succeeding. They cannot understand why there must be an ‘F’ bad nut to spoil their list of ‘A’ good nuts in their grades. They don’t understand why their boss will reject their report and call it names after a week of being praise as the best worker. I understand that failure is part of success. With every successful story, there are many failures. Failure is a sign that success is close by.
#2. Failing Is A Form of Instruction
Failure teaches. How many of us learn from it? Having thinking time to reflect over a failed venture is good but if it does not address fundamental issues of why there was a failure in the first place, it will be next to impossible to learn lessons from it. Failure may be a sign that strategies must be reviewed. There is no guarantee that first or second attempts will succeed. Learn the bitter lessons and move on.
#3. Failing Builds You Within
It is easy to tell when people have succeeded but very difficult to tell for failure. Many people show excitement and enthusiasm after making a sale, a proposal being accepted, meeting goals, and more. But few people can lift up their hands to thank God after failing. Failure builds a strong character within for the journey ahead.
There are many people who seek success without thinking that failure will show up along the way. Wherever success is, failure is present. God Himself plans with failure in mind. Even though in heaven there is no failure, on earth it is inevitable. After creating the earth, God employed Adam to manage it and woefully failed at it. Guess what, God ushered in a Plan B and moved on. Anytime you fail in anything, pull out Plan B, it might work miracles. Sure it will! May you be changed.
Labels: Failure, Instruction, Lessons, Success
