As Ellen DeGeneres said, “It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” How we learn, grow, and develop as people is determined by the attempts we take to achieve our goals and overcome challenges, as well as how we learn from them.
Trying new things is vital for our growth, development, and our quality of life. By making attempts in life, we explore possibilities, learn new things, and discover more about ourselves. We gain perspective and insight into who we are and what we want in life. For instance what we like to do, what our style is like, and so much more. In addition, we learn a lot about relationships, cause-and-effect, communication, emotion, everything! From the type of careers we want, to the qualities we seek (or avoid) in a partner, and even to the way we like our coffee, everything is realized through trial and error. However, trial is only half the journey…
Along with any attempt, there lies the possibility for error. However while many people fear failure, it’s actually a great thing to embrace, as it provides us with opportunities to learn from our mistakes and improve ourselves going forward. Failure, making mistakes, and missteps are all inevitable parts of life. Everybody fails, no matter who we are – students, parents, teachers, employers, everyone – and it’s okay! Nobody is perfect and even the greatest people make mistakes – or else they wouldn’t have become so great.
Not only does failing help us to learn and grow, but it also serves as a great way for us to gain deeper perspective and understanding into ourselves and life itself. By making mistakes, not only do we learn what not to do, but we also we gain insight into how to do things better, what works best, and how to succeed. By experimenting and trying out new ways of doing things, we can achieve our goals and overcome our challenges with time and practice. Trying out different lifestyle changes can help us know what we don’t want and help us realize what we do want.
Making mistakes helps us to become more independent, confident, resilient, and capable. Embracing failure is what gives us strength and the emotional and social skills we need to improve and better ourselves. It also provides more opportunities to explore new avenues, self-reflect, and gain a better self-concept of ourselves. In the end, it even gives us the will to try new things and diminishes our fear of failure. All these things set us up for the best possible success.
We all have goals, aspirations, and challenges to overcome in life. However, these things cannot be achieved, learned, or improved without failure. Failure is our greatest teacher because it teaches us how to be our best selves. No great success story was made without an attempt, and most probably failed at first. It’s the way you embrace your failure that directs you towards success. Never let fear of failure hold you back from living your life and achieving your dreams. So take the wrong turn, try new foods, and take the wrong classes. You may just discover you’ve taken a turn somewhere great, had the best meal of your life, and discovered a brand new passion to pursue.