Failure vs. Defeat
Most people have fears:
- Fear of spiders…
- Fear of snakes (on a plane!)…
- Fear of high places…
- Fear of caves…
Some of our fears are healthy. They keep us from doing stupid or dangerous things.
But there’s one fear that is completely unhealthy and counter-productive, and yet it is one of the most pervasive. This fear is the reason that so many people never achieve the success and wealth for which they were created.
What I’m talking about is the Fear of Failure.
But, why are people so afraid? Failure is a natural part of life and an essential part of learning.
When we are kids, we test constantly. We learn to walk by doing it, not by thinking about it. Sure, we fall down a lot at first. But eventually we get the hang of it and pretty soon we are running!
We learn to speak and read by doing it, not by thinking about. Yes, our words are garbled and unclear at first. But we eventually get the hang of it and pretty soon verbal and written language become our primary means of communicating with others.
Why, then, when it comes to starting a business, creating a website, publishing a blog or creating an information product do we allow ourselves to become paralyzed by fear?
What are we REALLY afraid of?
- Embarrassment?
- Ridicule?
- Financial loss?
Let me tell you what we SHOULD be afraid of: DEFEAT!
Some definitions:
- Failure - the condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends; ex: the failure of an experiment.
- Defeat - an unsuccessful ending to a struggle or contest; in the military sense, ruination and destruction.
So, a failure is basically an unsuccessful experiment. Why do we perform (do) an experiment in the first place? To LEARN! If the experiment succeeds, then we’ve learned how to do something right. If the experiment fails, then we’ve learned what not to do and we can try something else. But defeat is the end of the road. There is no “next experiment” once you’ve landed on defeat.
And guess what… defeat only comes when we choose it! Defeat only comes when we give up! As long as we don’t give up, as long as we don’t quit, we are not defeated. And failures? Those are just the stepping stones that bring us closer and closer to success!
Thomas Edison ran 10,000 unsuccessful experiments before finding the right combination of materials and construction techniques to produce the first commercially viable electric light bulb. What if he had given up after 10 trials? Or 100? Or 1000?
But, he didn’t. He saw each failure for what it truly was–an opportunity to learn, and a stepping stone towards success.
- Daniel Joseph Moran
