April 18, 2023

Failure, failure, failure…. What comes to your mind when you think about failure? Isn't it true failure is widely viewed as negative? There is a common misconception among people that failure is literally a bad thing. We do not want someone to call us losers when we fail in doing something. Yes! We think failure is the end of everything. But that’s not the actual fact. What you all need to know and understand is what does failure actually teach us in life?

Sometimes you fail to meet your expectations. That might be in your studies, project work or any competitions. We all have experienced this kind of failure at least once in our lifetime, which will be more painful or embarrassing. We also try to avoid things that could end in failure. We read or hear success stories more often than that of failure. No one wants to hear anything about failure, because we crave instant success these days. But remember behind each success story there are many such attempts. Failure is faced by everyone in one or the other situation. Let me take you back to your childhood. Now tell me how we learned to walk? Do you agree that we took many more attempts by falling down a couple hundred times? We did not learn to walk overnight. We crawled first, tried to sit and then slowly grabbed on to something to make an attempt to stand. We never stopped trying until we could walk properly. Similarly, how many of us have fallen down and got our knees hurt while riding a bicycle? I have also heard elderly people saying that once you fall or get hurt, then you will learn better. Yes! If we had not fallen that day, we would still struggle to walk or ride the bicycle. So just imagine you have learnt so many things from your failure at such a young age with no maturity, then why don’t you try it now?

Failure is just a part of your life. But the more important thing is what you learn from your failure. Once you fail at doing something, that doesn’t mean that’s the end. Instead, you need to have a mindset saying that next time you can do it much better. Failure is just another opportunity to learn something. If you achieve things easily without any failure or hard work, then you will surely take those things for granted and you will never take any task so seriously. So one must learn from mistakes, then only you grow. We know that every exit is an entry somewhere. In the same way, trying new things and failing or succeeding can open new doors to something better in life. Folks never take failure so deeply that it leads to hatred or depression. Surround yourself with positive thoughts and stop being emotional every time in every situation. Failure is not something that happens only with beginners. Many professionals and experts who are specialised in certain fields also fail sometimes. Rejections and disappointments are very common in life, but how you take them matters.

Let me share my own example. I am an artist. I often do face painting. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn’t achieve my expectations. During my failures, I have even come across people commenting on my flaws, saying why do you ruin your face by doing such paintings? You don’t look good, don’t spoil your beauty and so on. But at the same time, there are people who encourage my talent as well. In these cases, you should learn to accept both, the criticism and the compliment. Because both are essential to your way of success. You should be proud that people are watching your work and your success. Just because people say, do not ever drop your passion. This is how you have to come up with your failure. If not once, try twice or thrice until you achieve it. Trust me, the feeling that you get on the day of your achievement is really priceless. No one has anywhere said that you have to achieve things on the first try. So stop putting a fence around you. Trust the process, trust your work. It's okay if you fail, try hard to learn something out of your failure. Next time be cautious and try reducing mistakes. Surely one or the other day your work will be flawless.

Here is a simple example I can give you. In day to day life we often come across this, where elders say that if they have continued to ride a two-wheeler or drive a four-wheeler, then they need not wait for hours together to catch a bus. I am pretty sure you people have heard these statements many times. What happens is that if we accidentally fail in doing something, then it decreases one's confidence. Later, we will never make an attempt to reach the target. Hence we end up having regrets for not studying what we had to at that moment.

So all you have to do is come out of that failure. Do not be afraid of your failure. Instead, try to accept your failure first. That’s the biggest thing. So stay calm and give time to yourself to know the reason for the failure and boost yourself and get into your work with full enthusiasm. If you want success in your life, then you need to know one thing that you are going to fall. What you all need to do is to come out of that fear of failure. Learn how to face failure. It's okay if people laugh at you, learn to be ashamed. Take it positively, you can do much better in life. Who knows the people who laughed at you might be in the crowd cheering for you, looking at your success. Remember never stop anything in failure. Try again and again. Trust me, this time you will do it better. Have faith, trust the process and just don’t give up in life.