Failure is a Funny Thing (well sort of...)

As you all know, I am in the midst of reading "The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People" by David Niven-it's an easy read as each chapter is one tip-so the chapters are something you can easily read just a snippet of and move on to other tasks. I like to do it this way as I have found these little nuggets of wisdom to be quite thought provoking. I want to take the time to let them "soak in." Last night's little snippet was Chapter 63 (the 100th champter isn't too far away now) entitled "Failure Is Not Trying."

Hmmm, now personally I have some issues with the fear of failure,(a fear that on occasion has kept me from jumping off of the precipice of life) so I devoured this chapter and let it soak and this is what I took away from the following excerpt.

 " The fear of failure is powerful.(Really?) Nobody wants to reveal to others, or to themselves, that they were not capable of doing something they tried to do.

This fear can be used as a source of motivation to keep you working hard toward your goals. Yet this same fear offers a convenient escape clause.You can never fail if you don't bother to try.

Not trying is, of course, the ultimate failure, for it means you can never make the progress toward your goals."

This got me to thinking how about what strange thing the fear of failure is-if allowed to run rampant and take over your thoughts fear defeats you before you even have a chance to fail at all.  The fear of failure is that powerful and failure is not failure at all if you try and learn something from your mistakes. Thomas Edison once said "I failed my way to success" and we all know about his amazing contributions to the world today. Where would we be without his "failures?"-(most likely sitting in the dark, without audio or video...)

Failure tricks you into thinking that if you try and it's a flop you have failed-it's insidious that way-when in reality the only way to truly fail is not to try at all.