The F Word (Yes, I’m talking about…Failure!)

No, not THAT F word!  But hey, let’s face it. A well executed F-bomb can be as effective as any other word in the English language. I might even argue that adding in an F-Bomb to a sentence can do wonders to get your message across. Failure to know your audience, however, could result in creating problems for yourself. You won’t see me using it here because I tend to try not to offend any readers that might not agree with me. But I will do my friggin’ best to straddle that fence and throw in some colorful language to help get my message across. Sound good?

Fan-freakin-tabulous!

So…as I was saying. Not THAT F word. But a much more important, much more impactful word that can be both extremely dangerous and also infinitely helpful. You have even noticed that I used it just a few short sentences ago.

The word I’m talking about it is… (so much build-up!)

FAILURE!

Ack! Language, Kev! There are children around! Yes, yes, I know. This word is amazingly inflammatory and it’s something that some parents don’t like to expose their kids to these days. But, if you ask me…and given that you’re reading this, I think that the question is implied…I say that It’s OK to Fail. And more to the point, it’s imperative that you Fail! Failure is how you learn!

Can you name one person that has succeeded in anything – sports, business, weight loss…origami…ANYthing! – that has been one hundred percent successful from the word Go? Don’t answer that. I’ll answer it for you. It’s NO! No one has ever started out doing something without having first failed at that action.

Failure is as important to the process of Succeeding as any other step could be. Probably MORE important!

The lessons learned when failing at a task are incredibly valuable. You, of course, learn how NOT to do that task. The story of Thomas Edison saying that he didn’t fail one thousand times at making a light bulb, but instead he found one thousand ways NOT to make a light bulb, has been repeated ad nauseum for a reason. The process of failing shows you all of the things you want to avoid.

But failing brings with it a host of other benefits. Including:

• Builds character (I know…BORING!)
• Builds appreciation for later success
• Adds experience and knowledge
• Teaches you your strengths and weaknesses

Life is absolutely RIFE with Failure! It’s starts when we’re babies. No one stands up and walks on their first try. We’ve all fallen flat on our faces or straight back on our ass. But we kept trying. If we didn’t then we’d still be sitting on our parent’s living room floor in a crap-filled diaper. Awkward!

Failure is Key!

What’s important is that we learn to deal with that failure. We learn to keep moving forward and keep our eyes on the prize. Somewhere between learning to walk and adulthood we’re faced with opportunities to learn specific behaviors. When we learn to stand, crawl and walk, all we know is that we aren’t happy with where we are and that we can learn how to change that. But once language enters the equation. Then we start to understand the toxic words that make it easy to tell ourselves the word ‘NO.  Word like:

• impossible
• can’t
• difficult
• obstacles

And there are so many more! The more we allow these words to enter into our lexicon, the more they begin to take the place of positive words like:

• possible
• successful
• CAN
• path
• resolution

The longer we allow other words to step in front of the more positive ones, the easier it is to allow those Friends of Failure to overtake our world. And that is when Failure becomes a bad word. Failure becomes synonymous with the worst possible outcome. It becomes the F Word.

Failure is Fixable!

The good news is that no matter how long you’ve allowed this to be the norm for you, it’s fixable. That’s another good ‘F’ word for you to learn – Fixable!  Everything is Fixable!

It’s even said that F.A.I.L. actually stands for First Attempt In Learning.  So take that to heart.

You can change your outlook just as easily as you can change directions on the sidewalk. All it takes if for you to make that agreement with yourself that Failure is ok. Agree with yourself that every time that you didn’t succeed in your life was just a moment where you learned something about yourself. Agree with yourself that Failure is a good thing. Failure is a necessary step on the road to success. Agree with yourself that when you Fail, you’re doing something that every successful person has done before you.

Make an agreement with yourself that Failure Now = Success Later.

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