You may as well accept it. Failure is a reality, it's a fact. You're going to fail somewhere in the process. You are going to hit depths that make hell seem like a kiddie pool. It's going to be terrible. Screwing up when trying to succeed is going to happen. It's all part of the process, the trial and error. Failure is a hard feeling to deal with. It can make you feel as though everything bad that happens is your fault and yours alone. It can make you feel that you have no chance to succeed, that your plans and actions are worthless. This is often an over-exaggeration of the truth.
Failure is real. Accept it.
When you do fail, I want you to remember and follow the Five R's of Failure.
- Reflect on how it makes you feel. Why do you feel as bad as you do? Know why you feel the way you do. If the reason seems illogical, it probably is.
- Resign your emotions. Take the time to come to terms with your feelings. How you feel is as important as what you feel. Take the time to get your head and heart aligned.
- Resolve to make each successive failure hurt less. The things about successive failures is that they often hurt less as you become more proficient in handling misfortune.
- Repair the damage. Failure sometimes breaks something inside of us and it is often easy to start over without repairing what was broken. Like pouring water through a hose that has a hole in it. You must take some time to make repairs so that when you go to the next step you are ready.
- Restart the process anew. Failure is only failure when you don't continue to try and succeed at what you were originally trying for. Restarting is important. It's the whole get back on the bike part after you've fallen off.
Failure is only the end when you allow it to be. Accept what you learn from the experience and grow from it.
