Failure – Just Another Word For Feedback

Through out history, the word “failure” has somehow come to mean very negative things. Most people would agree that it represents everything we “think” we don’t want. No one wants to fail. No one wants to be labeled a failure. However, over the years I have embraced quite a different perspective of that word we all fear. To me, failure is just another word for “Feedback”.

Personally, I don’t believe in failure. It occurred to me sometime ago that people who do, are almost doomed to a life of mediocrity.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about “Failure”:

“Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.”

Wikipedia goes on to state:

“The criteria for failure are heavily dependent on context of use, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. A situation considered to be a failure by one might be considered a success by another, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. Similarly, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation.It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or heuristics, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.”

In my mind, it’s all a matter of perspective. When we allow ourselves to believe in failure it automatically creates limits in our core belief system. This ensures that what we think we can achieve has a limit.

Henry Ford understood this when he so famously stated:

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.”

Ask yourself this:

Can you afford to believe in failure?

Failure doesn’t exist. Even though there are many who would look at my own life and find many so called “failures”, I have chosen a better perspective. I have great patience with such people. Failure is a myth, a lie that we are socially conditioned to believe is true. It doesn’t exist. What most people view as failure is really self-education. It’s feedback. I like to think of failure as the results I am producing. If I am not producing the results I desire, I don’t beat myself up and call it a failure. I call up persistence and rethink my strategy to produce different results next time.

We are limitless beings of unbounded potential. Thinking makes it so.

“You are what your deep, driving desire is.

As your desire is, so is your will.

As your will is so is your deed.

As your deed is so is your destiny.”

- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV.4.5