How do you define failure?  In fact, as you contemplate the word itself, what images come to mind when you think about failure?  Does it seem that failure has been part of your life far more often than you care to imagine?  Do you find yourself avoiding it at all costs?

Failure is a dreaded word for many people.  For some, it’s not even an option.  And trust me, that is a very difficult way to go through life!

As humans, we all fail at times – it’s inevitable.  In fact, most of us have failed a LOT!  Consider how often we failed as a toddler when we were first learning how to walk?  On any given day we tried to stand up numerous times only to fall down within a few short seconds.  Undeterred, we’d grab onto the nearest piece of furniture with our tiny little hands and pull ourselves up again.  And just as we were so excited to be finally standing upright, we’d tumble to the floor yet again! 

Was each fall a failure?  Well, by most people’s definition of the word, absolutely!  We failed over and over and over…too many times to count (and fortunately we didn’t know how to count yet so we weren’t able to track all our failures – which was probably why we finally succeeded!). 

Fast forward about 6 to 8 years when we were first learning how to ride a bike.  Guess what?  Lots more failure!  Or was it….? 

We had to fall down a few times in order to learn how to adjust our balance so we could stay on the bike longer the next time.  Each fall was a tremendous learning opportunity.  We didn’t give up then, did we? 

Yet now as adults we all too often shy away from the risk of failure…or we avoid the possibility altogether.  We either give up too easily after one or two “failures” or, even worse, we don’t try at all because we might crash and burn.  Sadly, we end up missing out on so much success in life because we stopped seeing failure as a as one of the best things that can happen to us. 

Some of the most successful people in the world experienced a tremendous amount of failure prior to their success.  Or perhaps a better way to look at it…they allowed themselves to experience a huge number of learning opportunities in order to use their personal power and finally succeed. 

When you redefine failure as an opportunity to learn or improve or find a different way, you become unstoppable.  You no longer fear it…rather you begin to embrace it because with each “failure” you become that much closer to success.  If the fear of failure has been holding you back, it’s time to ditch your old definition of the word and give it a new one.  You will be amazed at what you can accomplish when you do!  Have you had any failures the inevitably  were successes?