Failure Is The Fertilizer To Grow Your Future Success

Prepare to fail your way to success

Success and failure are often mistakenly looked upon as opposites, much like hot and cold, wet and dry, and day and night. In reality, when viewed properly and acted upon, success and failure are both parts of the same process.

Samuel Beckett was born in the early 20th century in Ireland. During World War II, he was part of the French Resistance and will forever be known as a poet, novelist, and playwright, winning the Nobel prize for literature in 1969. Beckett spoke to the nature of success and failure when he said, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
 
Too often, we look upon success in a solitary way. We assume that it is the finish line, the summit of the mountain, or the attainment of a goal. In reality, success comes when we strive to improve ourselves and our performance in the pursuit of a worthwhile goal.
 
As a former competitive Olympic weightlifter, I remember being inundated with an endless string of statistics related to my performance. These statistics were compared to world records, national records, and Olympic records. In the final analysis, as an athlete or in my personal and professional life, the only statistic that really matters is one that all competitors know as “personal best.” Personal best is simply the highest or best performance you have ever had in a competition, task, or activity. The factors that matter surrounding your personal best involve how much and how often you are improving.
 
When you begin weightlifting or any other human endeavor, your performance is inevitably poor, but it improves rapidly and significantly. As you approach world-class status or the top of your field, your personal best will improve very slightly and seldomly. Each of the steps along the way could be viewed as a failure in light of your goal, but these incremental steps are actually the stairway to heaven in your quest to succeed.
 
Failure is never final. If you persist, it is only the fertilizer to grow your future success.
 
As you go through your day today, prepare to fail your way to success.

Author Bio

Jim Stovall is the President of the Emmy-award-winning Narrative Television Network and a published author of more than 50 books—eight of which have been turned into movies. He is also a highly sought-after platform speaker. Follow @Stovallauthor