Failure - my observation, analysis and philosophy!

Oh Yes, you didn't fail to reach here! Our whole self-worth is so tied up in succeeding, that we don’t realise that failure is necessary to achieve anything of real value.

I know you are sitting there having just read the opening to this post saying, what the hell are you talking about Jay?

You would find this very unusual to read, but I like the feeling of getting failed sometimes. It just becomes a inevitable part of your journey when you enjoy even your failure. Failure is just your plan/wish goes unwanted! Your intended objective does not go satisfied, you call it failure! Failure is absolutely necessary. Failure means learning, but its more than just a painful lesson you have to endure. Failure shouldn’t just be tolerated. It’s something that should be indulged in, because failure is an amazing opportunity. Failure is introducing yourself first-hand to an aspect of your business or life that can be improved upon.

Thomas Edison discovered 1,000 ways not to make a lightbulb before landing on a solution. Einstein's dead-end job as a patent clerk freed up his mind to imagine what might lie beyond Newtonian physics. Failure is a great teacher, if you're a willing student.
 
The way ice cream comes in various flavours, but the base is always vanilla, failure is no more different from it. Failure comes is various modes, but the base is same, disappointment! And not to forget, this is the state of mind! We have heard many people saying, happiness is a state of mind, age is also a state of mind, why not the failure? If you mind it, you will feel. Let us just not recall Mr. Rahul Gandhi, who recently threw a statement - Poverty is a state of mind! :)

It would be difficult to come across anyone who hasn’t failed ever – at anything, or even anyone who doesn’t know what it means. And yet so many times we get hassled by this familiar experience, instead of leveraging it. Embrace it, leverage it and by all means celebrate failure, because it precedes luck, success and happiness most times. Failure also draws us closer to the truth, that we’re mortals; draws us closer to God and brings in humility and builds character.

Well, what I am talking about is, failure is an essential part of any success, including life, and we should not let it discourage us or scare us.
Instead we should embrace failure, failure is how business’s grow, failure is how writers become published authors, failure is how garage bands become signed world touring bands.

It seems I fail to attract you yet in the article! Though this makes me more cautious to write those contents which really pumps you up and motivate! In my completely personal opinion, there are following modes of failures!

1. Failure in Relationship : One of the very rare failure for me as I guard a different nature to bow down and have a let-go thinking. But there are certain areas, certain circumstances where people fail to keep the relationship. In whatever relations I've failed, I tell myself that thanks to the relationship, you've learned more about yourself — what you can deal with, what you can't, and what you yourself need to improve on. You're a little more realistic about what's out there, and who you are.
   
   
2. Failure in goals : Here comes an interesting fact that we do set goals, but we have to identify what kind of goal are they. Short term or long term? If short term goal fails, we can always take an alternate to reach out to the milestone to sail towards long term one. Without wasting a time and crying on why you failed, you have to immediately jump on thinking of an alternate and implement. If you just keep thinking, it will only be a thinking, rather you should act on it. If a long term goal fails, it becomes hard to come out of a shock as everybody can understand. But you are not everybody, you are a unique character. You would be counted special if you plan to use same energy, same achievement in a little different goal. Thus you would be utilising all your hardwork into a fruitful and alternatively similar goal. For example, you played a lot of cricket for your state team,but failed to get listed into Indian team. You should not stop, rather apply for the job of a coach, an academy, a sports company. Thus you utilise the roads you have visited, the skills you have in an alternate way. We can talk many exmaples of such a philosophy.


3. Failure in Business : Recession is very motivating. I admit, I have failed heavily in my business plans recently, but that has give me more energy and motivation to redo the things with better plan. Due to this failure, I am slowed down a bit, I can sit down and think more deeply. It gives me more time to think for any future decisions to take. It gives me more ideas to implement, more tricks to adjust to whatever conditions, more products to work on, more contributions to do, more to read, more to explore on any topic. The way everything fails, this applies to business, as much as it applies to anything else in one’s life. We’re consciously trying to build this into the culture of our still budding company by acknowledging failure when it happens and rewarding in some form, quick failures. For failing quickly could save us a lot of time and money, so we can then fail somewhere else, until we figure what works. We’re still working on the stigma attached to failure, to remove the negative connotation and bring in a positive one.

"You can only find the strength of the iron to weigh a weight, only when it fails."

Celebrate Failure

It's time to stop hiding your failures and share them with the world! We know you've failed. Everyone has. But because most people are too ashamed to talk about their failures, they keep happening over and over to different people.

Ways to overcome and learn from Failure:
JD Roth has developed a system for responding to small mistakes. Namely,

• Figure out what went wrong. When I make a mistake, I take time to analyze why it occurred. Lack of mindfulness is the source of many of my financial mistakes. Sad but true. Observe your mistake/failure as a 3rd person. You will get answers.

• Make a plan to prevent the future failure. As you have burnt hands in the past, you can plan your next move well. If you are not going to face it again, you can guide others well and earn more respect.

• View each failure as temporary and isolated. No problem is that bigger to break you. Count it as just a temp thing, isolate it and throw it out of your mind. I don't let small failures bother me is that I've come to recognize that all these tiny errors, while annoying, actually make me a better person. These little failures are the price I pay in order to find success.

If you have questions on my philosophy, feel free to write back a comment. I would love to discuss and have a chance to help anyone overcome a failure.

Finally, I love to fail, fail well and fail successfully.

Thanks,
Jay.

Courtesy: Various experiences, observations and articles I've read.