This past month has brought with it an
abundance of momentum and growth, reflecting the exceptionally precocious
arrival of spring-like conditions in the outside world. The seeds which were sown
last year are already starting to push through the hard crust of the earth and
bloom as beautiful green shoots and spring flowers. On a parallel plane, in my
own life I am experiencing leaps of expansion and development, including a move
into a new home complete with a little garden to play in. I can honestly say
that the path has not always been straight and level, and I have known my fair
share of dead ends along the way. And
yet it has been this very process which has enabled me to stare roadblocks in
the eye, to carry on seeking out another path towards the same final
destination, and to not feel crushed by lack of immediate success.
EMBRACING FAILURE
As you read the title of the Newsletter for this month, you may
well be wondering if this is an April Fool’s joke. Let me assure you, I am most
serious and light-hearted at the same time! The subject has been continually on
my mind due to the inspirational conversations with my brilliant coach
colleague in Germany, Anna Stowers (with whom I have developed an exciting
series of workshops and retreat offerings: more to come on this in a future
Newsletter!). In addition, numerous articles on the subject have simultaneously
landed in my path, as if magnetized by the force of the idea. Never one to
believe in coincidence, I am thankful for the synchronicity in life which has
helped to crystallize this new understanding, and which I want to share with
you here …
In his blog in the Harvard Business
Review on October 21, 2009, David Silverman quotes Tom Watson, the founder
of IBM:
“Would you like me to give you a formula for
success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are
thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be
discouraged by failure — or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make
mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you will find
success.”
Both success and failure are born of
the same seed. When we observe children, we see that they learn precisely by
failing countless times and not giving up. Whether learning to walk, talk, ride
a bicycle or tie their shoelaces, they remain resilient, embrace failure and
continue to adapt until they achieve their desired results. Playing is also a vital
part of their lives through which most learning takes place.
Is it because they no longer play that
adults are afraid to fail? After all, our society values adults’ work, which is
considered to be the opposite of play. However,
if failure is branded as unacceptable, learning is made impossible—with the
paradoxical result that failure will inevitably persist. Our performance
culture really is in deep conflict with the learning culture …
Perhaps
we would do well to reformulate failure simply as deviation from expected and
desired results. As such, failure is a process; it thereby becomes possible to fail well. If we are to move on and
learn and not repeat the same mistakes, this process of embracing failure must
also involve identifying mishaps and analyzing them in a spirit of inquiry and
openness. Failing well breeds success, as Steve Jobs so clearly points out:
“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that
getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to
me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner
again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most
creative periods of my life.”
As we embrace this “beginner’s mind”, we are able to inhabit the
powerful space of NOW.We can overcome
limiting beliefs and grant ourselves the possibility of gaining wisdom through
failure. Over time this failure muscle becomes strengthened and we begin to move
more effectively towards new solutions and resourcefulness. After all, consider
this definition of the difference
between a professional and an amateur:the
professional makes as many mistakes as the amateur - the difference is, a professional
fixes them faster!
5 WAYS TO FAIL (AND BREED SUCCESS!)
1)“Don't be afraid to
make a mistake. But make sure you don't make the same mistake twice.”- Akio
Morita
2)“Would you like me
to give you a formula for... success? It's quite simple, really. Double your
rate of failure. You're thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it
isn't at all... you can be discouraged by failure—or you can learn from it. So
go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where
you'll find success. On the far side.” - Thomas
J. Watson
3)“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every
time we fall.” - Confucious
4)“Mistakes are
almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary:
rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible
for you to sublimate them.” - Salvador
Dali
5)“Success
consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston
Churchill
MORE
QUOTABLE QUOTES
“You will
do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” - Colette
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more
honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.” - George
Bernard Shaw
“Even a
mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile
achievement.” - Henry Ford
“A man's
errors are his portals of discovery.”- James
Joyce
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000
ways that won’t work.” - Thomas Edison
“Experience
is simply the name we give our mistakes.” - Oscar Wilde
“Only
those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F.
Kennedy
“If
you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything
very innovative.” - Woody Allen
“Give me a fruitful error any time, full of
seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for
yourself.” - Vilfredo Pareto
“Failure
is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” - Truman Capote
“Success is never permanent, and failure is
never final.” - Mike Ditka
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man
who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could
have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who
errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the
great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows
achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring
greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
know neither victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt
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add this:
"Reproduced from Valerie
Legge’s “Compose Your Life” coaching newsletter. To subscribe or find out more
about Valerie's personal life coaching, visit http://www.ComposeYourLife.ca”.
For a complimentary coaching
session to get a taste of what coaching can do for you, please contact me at
info@ComposeYourLife.ca.
