“Failure puts you in corners you have to think your way out of. It is a source of breakthroughs.The world is telling you something with each and every failure and action. It’s feedback – giving you precise instructions on how to improve. It’s trying to teach you something. Listen. Lessons come hard only if you’re deaf to them. Don’t be.” Ryan Holliday, The Obstacle is The Way
One of the things we humans are frustratingly known for is our fear of failure. We are so afraid of messing up that we won’t even try. We keep going to the same, mediocre job every day…clocking in and out and mindlessly doing our jobs. We do the same thing in our relationships. We stay quiet, courteous, and calm. We settle into our routines, don’t talk about difficult topics and just rock along. If we just stay quiet and safe we cannot fail.
Friends, failure is a part of life. All of us work hard to cover our failures and this makes others feel alone in theirs. We don’t share our mess ups, we sweep them under the rug and spend days crying over why something bad happened to us and wondering why something didn’t work out. We take failure personally. We are offended by it.
Failure is an opportunity to do better next time. It sets us up for better success each time. Every time you make a mistake, humble yourself and move forward. I have made a lot of mistakes in my relationships, I have hurt people and people have hurt me. For so many years of my life I felt sorry for myself and had the “why me” mindset. Then, I realized that each mess up in a relationship was teaching me how to do better next time. Every mistake made by myself or others was a real life lesson in how to love better. A failed relationship is nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes we simply aren’t equipped to handle what is in front of us. Learn from it and move on. Adopt the mindset of failure as a teacher instead of a punishment and your life will change drastically. Much love and lessons learned sweet friends.
