10 Great Lessons You Can Learn From Highly Successful People About Failure

Robert Spadinger

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. - Michael Jordan
So, you have this fantastic idea and you are absolutely excited to get started with your project…
BUT, something is holding you back. Somehow you always find a reason to procrastinate and to occupy yourself with other, less important things.
Could it be that you are afraid of failure?
After all, this isn’t as save and straightforward as most other things you may have done so far. So, yes, there is a risk to fail and to mess up.
What will your friends think about you? Will you be laughed at, ridiculed, called a loser…?

Your idea about failure may be completely wrong

From an early age on we are taught that it’s bad to make mistakes and that they need to be avoided by all means otherwise there are unpleasant consequences.
The truth however is that failure and making mistakes is a necessary part of success and it cannot be avoided.
It can only be avoided if you decide to “play it save” for the rest of your life and if you are happy to remain in your comfort zone and stop expanding and enjoying the exhilarating feeling of continuous growth.
But, that’s not really what you want, right?

The most successful people are the biggest “failures”

Yes, the most successful people are those who fail the most. With each failure your grow, you become bigger, you learn new and important things and you get one step closer to reaching your goals.
Big dreams and big goals can only be realized as long as you are ready to fail – again and again.

Learn from the most successful people and adopt a similar attitude towards failure

The happiest and most successful people know that…

• #1: Failure is an integral part on the way to success and self realization.
• #2: Whenever you step outside the comfort zone and whenever you try something new, failure becomes inevitable.
• #3: Each failure brings you one step closer to reaching your goals.
• #4: Failure is a great teacher and it allows you to learn some of the most valuable life lessons.
• #4: Each failure makes you stronger, bigger and better.
• #6: Making mistakes is not a big deal as long as you learn from them and avoid repeating them.
• #7: Failure teaches you that a certain approach may not be ideal for a specific situation and that there are better approaches.
• #8: Successful people will never laugh at you or judge you when you fail, because they have already been there and they know about the valuable lessons you can learn from failure.
• #9: No matter how often you fail, you are not a failure as long as you don’t give up.
• #10: Each time you fail, your fear of failure becomes smaller, which allows you to take on even bigger challenges.

One thing is absolutely sure, if you REALLY want to succeed in life, if you want to do something special, if you want to fulfill your dreams… failure becomes inevitable.
But, it doesn’t hurt as much as you may think. With the right attitude you can even turn “the art of failing” into an interesting and exciting adventure.
If you are still stuck in your old paradigm of “failing is bad and should be avoided by all means”, I highly recommend you read some autobiographies of highly successful people to learn how they “failed” their way to success.
You will be astonished how often those people failed until they finally succeeded and what a different and rather positive attitude they have towards failure.
How do you deal with failures?
Do you have a specific approaches to quickly get over your failures and to continue on the road to success?