“For the righteous falls seven times and rises again.” Proverbs 15:16
God powerfully used men throughout the Bible that at one point or another, failed in their quest to fulfill their calling but who were at the same time resilient enough to get back up and push forward to reach their God-given purpose.
Successful people in the business world did not reach that lofty status of success without first tasting from the bitter cup of failure.
You have most likely heard the importance of failing forward and not fearing failure.
The problem is not our understanding of the benefits of failure; the problem is our ability to live it out. Most people claim they are ok with failure, but the truth is they are undoubtedly not. Being ok with failure is an overused narrative and an under-leveraged reality. It’s one thing to say you don’t fear failure; it’s a whole other thing to live that way.
Here are four ways to learn from failure:
1. You Must Have a Long Term Vision
You can’t be successful without a long-term vision. Life is like investing; the longer you’re willing to hang in there, the higher your return-on-investments. If you keep pulling out your investment on every bad day, you’ll never get ahead. Failure works best when you couple it with endurance. It’s those who are committed for the long haul that best learn from failure. If you are short-sighted, you’ll freak out at every failure and miss opportunities to grow from them. Short-term thinkers overreact out of fear and worry, whereas long-term thinkers know there’s always another day.
2. Consider Failure A Lesson For Success
We’ve all heard the famous story about Edison not failing 1,000 times to make a light bulb but learning 1,000 ways not to make it. However, this is still a massive shift in perspective that most people fail to live out.
Failure paves the road to success. You can’t truly become successful without going through failures to get there. It’s the lessons we learn from mistakes that equip us with what’s needed to become better.
Author Napoleon Hill once said, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”
If we are going to be comfortable with failure, we have to view it as our greatest teacher showing us the way forward.
3. Never Give Up
Thomas Edison said, “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.” The only way you truly give up is to give up. It sounds simple, but the truth is that nothing is impossible until you give up. Once you give up, the possible slips into impossible, not because it is impossible, but because you have made it impossible. Those who are successful in life are those who don’t give up. We all face obstacles on our journey to success. Obstacles teach us how to become successful. Yet many people who face obstacles become disillusioned thinking something is wrong. Obstacles are not always a sign of things going wrong; many times, they are a sign of things going right. The path to success is not one of smooth seas and a warm breeze. Make a choice today that you’ll never give up, no matter what the cost.
4. Make Sure You Have A Spiritual Mentor
If we don’t have someone to go to when we’ve failed, we will end up alone and disillusioned. God created us for community. Join a Growth Group at church. The cycling club is teaching us that we are better together. The most successful people have pastors, mentors, and a church family that help them get through tough times. The toughest thing to go through is not tough times; it’s going through tough times without someone who can pray with us and for us.
I just went through five difficult weeks. That period significantly increased my appreciation of those who prayed for me and uplifted me with their words of faith and encouragement.
These tough people help us gain perspective, get encouragement, and hold us accountable when we need it the most. In fact, if you study the most successful people, you’ll find they almost always have a trusted go-to person that is not biased or too close to the situation. They intentionally insert these people into their lives to offer fresh insight. If you want to be all you can be, make sure to get people in your life that can make you better.
Have a blessed week,
Pastor (Rev. Elias Limones)
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