By, The Curator
How to View Failure
Michael Jordan once said, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” There are thousands of different inspirational quotes about failure that all have the intention of yanking you out of your place of loss and convincing you to keep going. It’s such a cliche topic, especially on social media where you can barely scroll by five pictures without coming across an inspirational quote. The only issue with this is that many of these quotes provide the wrong ideas about failure. They unintentionally skew the meaning and perception of it which leads many to interpret them the wrong way.
Countless people who are pursuing new ventures come across these quotes and begin to think that failure is mandatory. That you must fail to succeed. There’s this perception that failure is one of the doors you need to open in order to achieve greatness. That’s not the case though. Failure is just a part of life. It is a broken or missing step on the staircase to success at whatever you may be pursuing. An abundance of people don’t understand that it is not mandatory to fail, it just comes your way based off the situation you are in and the decisions you make. You are just as likely to fail at creating a successful clothing brand as you are at failing to change a tire the right way.
How to Deal With Failure
Success does not lie in failure. It lies in how you handle it. The steps you take after you fail and how you repair the broken staircase. It is about the process that follows, not the act of failing.
Failure prompts you to do one of two things. You either get discouraged and quit, or you become hungrier and decide to keep going. If you quit then just turn around and walk down the staircase, but if you decide to keep going then you better be damn sure that you choose the right materials and techniques to build the next step before you continue to climb.
The first step to recovering from failure is actually recognizing that you failed. The second step is making sure you have the right mindset to continue climbing. This is something that I preach a lot because in business if you don’t have the right mindset, you will not be able to make the right decisions.
Identify the Problem and Move Forward
Instead of being sad and discouraged, look at it as an investment. Maybe you lost $5,000 when you failed. Rather than being angry that you just “threw away” $5,000, view it as a $5,000 investment in your success. This brings me to the next step. In order to make sure that your investment pays off you need to recognize what you did wrong and learn from it.
Identify where you screwed up as well as what lead to that. You might not be able to figure it out right away, but you can’t effectively continue to climb the stairs until you do. Once you understand what happened, you know what not to do again. The next stage is simply determining what options you have for your next move and which will be most ideal.
I am only covering this topic because recently I have come across plenty of aspiring musicians, artists, and businessmen who have all had the wrong idea about failure. Some even claimed that they go out looking for it. As previously stated that can be attributed to the never ending circulation of inspirational quotes about failure so I don’t hold it against them. They have been mislead about the topic, but at least they recognize that failure provides an opportunity to learn. So to those of you who believe that failure means success, you are wrong. Failure provides you with an opportunity to learn, and learning new things paired with learning what not to do is what brings you success. Education and knowledge opens doors to power and prosperity. This can be applied to any life failures as well. If you have recently failed at something then take a minute to breath, follow the steps above, and keep climbing your staircase. The last thing you want to do is throw in the towel.
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The Curator 
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