The Detriment of Avoiding Failure

If you are brave enough to sacrifice your pride briefly and embrace the lessons within your various failures, you can become a wise and successful force to be reckoned with in the future.

The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is failure. Successful people know the value of learning from their failures and because of this, do not fear trying something without knowing if they will succeed. A man who fails repeatedly has acquired wisdom and knowledge from each failure, that he can then apply to each new venture. A man who avoids difficult ventures in an attempt to avoid failure may seem wiser at first, but he robs himself of the knowledge that those failures will provide. He will be surpassed by the seemingly foolish man who ran headlong into difficult ventures only to fail repeatedly.

The issue for most is the misconception that failure is something to be ashamed of or that it is frowned upon by others, which is nothing more than evidence of the fact that many people avoid failure and think of it in those terms just like you.

When scientists run experiments they try not only to understand what works but they also log and examine all of their failures. Why? Because it teaches them things to avoid for next time and, in many cases, causes them to stumble upon an important discovery that they weren't even looking for. So is the case with our own ventures. If you aren't making any attempt, you are never bettering yourself and you're missing out on so many potential self discoveries.

Over the years I have released numerous songs that sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to me now. I've lost my voice on stage, I've chipped teeth on microphones, I've bruised ribs from tripping on mic cords... If I quit every time I was embarrassed, I would have been done in my teens but my failures taught me a million and one ways to not make/perform music. I am much better for having those experiences.

If you are brave enough to sacrifice your pride briefly and embrace the lessons within your various failures, you can become a wise and successful force to be reckoned with in the future. The odds are, you will discover, in the process, that you are much better at, and happier doing, something completely different than what you started with. So don't stay stagnant. Go off and humbly embrace your failure. Live for the long game and you'll very likely discover new loves and new talents within yourself that you didn't even realize were there. Plan for success but don't ever fear, because success or failure, you are becoming a better version of yourself for having tried.