There was a moment in your life where you made a decision to go for something, care enough to put your passion into it, put your heart on your sleeve, blood sweat and tears, put your ambition on the line, risk it, do or die, all or nothing, make the push to see if you had what it takes, success or failure you put all of that into to something you really cared about and wanted to achieve or accomplish.
So you put the work in, but then you feel it, the doubt creeping in, it’s difficult, hard, your decision and motivation is tested, can I really do this? The first test is the commitment. But what if you get through that, you might have a sense of accomplishment, some confidence, but then the second test… with all the work you put in, you’re not as good as you thought you were. Some adversity, maybe it’s competition or maybe it’s a shortcoming or a growing pain, not quite measuring up to where you want to be. The second test is overcoming failure. What if you get through that? How about learning from your mistakes. Being honest with your progression and where you need to grow and develop. Then regrouping to put in the work and push through the next barrier, the wall that previously knocked you back. Breaking down the next limitation, only see another wall in front of you again, this time bigger, taller, stronger. Just to repeat the whole process again. The third test is perseverance. Can you sustain, can you endure, can you overcome, long enough to start to see some real change and progression. Skill and talent isn’t the limiting factor, the limiting factor is how much time and energy are you willing to put in and the resource is you.
Have you been through that? Gone through any part of that sequence, and at some point felt like, it’s not worth it and have never been able to muster the decision to go through it again? Or concluded that no matter how much time and work I put in, I’m not going to be anything of significance. All lies. The real reason is not wanting to feel like a failure, that’s what people are really afraid of. Failing at something is discouraging, depressing, defining… Defining and permanent, the perception of it, the judgment of it, the condemnation of it.
We have such a difficult time recovering from that, and sometimes actually never recover from it, if we are living to avoid the risk of failure. And I’m not talking about those of us that have a more naturally conservative personality that make calculative decisions based on risk:reward ratio. I’m talking about forcibly avoiding risk and having a visceral fear of failure. The secret here is really, knowing, realizing that the typical failure we’re talking about usually amounts to nothing of significance. It’s just a blip, that no one will remember or even pay attention to because they’re worried about their own significance. But pay attention that it’s also a scalable progression, someone just recently learning how to “fail” or take risks, should not be performing heart surgery, investing in stocks or performing in the Olympics the very next day as their first progression.
Failure is a lesson in awareness, humility and learning. Failure should be embraced as a progression built on perseverance. But repeating the same failures can be a sign of stubbornness, pride and ego which is essentially willful ignorance and negligence. Avoiding failure is letting fear control you, making it the god of your limitations.
Build up, scale up, level up.