We often think of failure as the end, however, if you change your perspective, you will find that failure provides many valuable lessons. And if you continue trying, eventually, failure will teach you how to succeed.
Many of us try something, and then when we fail, we give up. Honestly, the only true failure in life is in quitting. Because no one tries something and succeeds the first time, and if they do, their goal was too small. You might be shaking your head, but I promise you, you can learn a lot from failure. Here are 12 things failure teaches us.
1. Other approaches could work better.
When we fail, we are faced with two options: to walk away and give up, or to try again with a new approach. And since you’ve already ruled out one approach, it’s much easier to understand the best direction to take. Eventually, you will narrow it down to one, and then you will succeed.
2. Humility
When we fail, we realize we are not invincible. And while it may sound crazy, it teaches us humility and it makes us humble ourselves.
3. Failure isn’t the end of the road.
Failure doesn’t have to mean it’s the end. It’s merely just a new beginning, a new opportunity, and a new chance to try again and do better.
4. Priorities.
When we fail, we are forced to reexamine our mission and to get down to what is important. Along this journey, we will reprioritize each time we fail, and in a way, failure shows us what matters most.
5. It redefines our values.
Failure also helps us to redefine our values. When we first begin, we may have one mission in mind, but along the journey and through failure, we learn new and more important things for ourselves and our path. Through this, we learn a lot about our values.
6. Our limits.
Another thing failure teaches us is our limits. We may start gung ho and determined to make things work, while not realizing our limits. However, when we fail, we begin to better understand our limits.
7. Compassion.
Failure also teaches us compassion. Sometimes, our ego can get the best of us, and unintentionally, we may lose sight of our compassion towards others that fail. But when we fail, we grow to understand compassion for ourselves and others on a whole new level.
8. Emotional intelligence.
When we fail, it can be easy to let our emotions get the better of us. However, when we do that, that is when we are most likely to fail. So, we have to learn to control our emotions and our reactions to them, which teaches us emotional intelligence.
9. Determination.
Nothing encourages determination more than failure. At first, we may feel jaded, but if we want our goals badly enough, we transition to a newfound level of determination.
10. Flexibility.
When we begin a journey, we likely have one thing in mind. And to get there, we may have a fixed mindset about how we plan to achieve it. Then, when we fail, we learn that we have to be more flexible in our attempts to achieve our goals.
11. There isn’t one right way.
And of course, we learn that while we may have thought there is only one way to reach our goal, failure teaches us that simply isn’t the case. There are many different ways to approach our goals, and that is okay. We just have to find the right one for us.
12. Our strengths & weaknesses.
Above all, failing teaches us where our strengths are and what our weaknesses are. And those are two fundamental concepts to understand when we are trying to reach a goal.