Failures As Teachers

Barack Obama said this in his “back to school speech”: “you can’t let your failures define you — you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time”.

Failures are a natural consequence of action. If you attempt to something, especially if you are a novice you are bound to meet with failure. It bogs most of us down and if it happens more than once, we give up. The fear of failure is what makes it a dark word. The truth is that failure is just an experience different from what you expected. Failure is generally seen as humiliation or defeat but it is only what you make it out to be. You can either learn from your wrongs and move right ahead or just give up and get nowhere. The story of Helen Keller has always been inspirational for me. If a young girl, both deaf and blind, could overcome all the obstacles and become an inspiration and source of encouragement to millions of others, just because she never gave up, and grew more determined with each failure, what is stopping us?

Fear of failure is a mental block. Failure is a wonderful teacher if we look at it positively and learn from it. “Failure is the stepping stone to success” and that is because it teaches us to switch over to the correct path. All we have to do is to embrace our failures, analyze them and take corrective action.