One of the best things that my parents did while raising my brother and me, was allowing us to fail. Now, I am not saying that they set us up to fail in everything or anything we did, but there were many times that they knew the only way we would learn from a situation was to not be given an easy way out of it and to fail at it. Our parents taught us at a very early age that we will not be handed everything in life; if we wanted something, we had to work for it and today, at 19 years old, I am so grateful for that.
Growing up, my mother always said, “sometimes you have to fail before you can succeed,” and that has always stuck with me. There are so many important things you can learn from failing before you succeed, and many times failing first makes you appreciate the success that much more. Failing on the first try may not be the best feeling or the biggest ego boost, but sometimes it is a much-needed reality check that puts everything back into perspective and makes you rethink how prepared, qualified, or how truly ready you would be if you were given the opportunity or thing you are going after.
No parent wants to see their child fail, but every good parent knows that their child will fail, at some point in their life. Now, my parents didn’t let us fail at everything, but they did teach us the value of hard work. More importantly, they taught us that failing or getting told no is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, not succeeding on the first try or being told no at first, opens up other doors or opportunities later on. Also, there are times when not succeeding at first allows you to reevaluate how bad you want what you’re going after, and how hard you are willing to work for it. Though failing has such a negative connotation around it, there is so much positive that can come from it or be learned from it. You will not succeed at everything in life, so you might as well take your failures and learn from them.