In the many articles that you have read and the many people who have said to you “reaching your goal sometimes involve mistakes and failures.” You would probably think by now that you have a complete grasp on this concept. But, with one small mistake that you make, suddenly the words in the articles and the voices of the people seem to have disappeared while you pace back and forth tired from the sleepless nights worrying what will become of you.

Loserville is where you are thinking of moving to. Discouraged and ashamed you give up, little knowing that you were closer than you thought. This is an all too common behavior among many people. We never gave ourselves a chance to learn from the mistakes and failures in order to reap the ultimate rewards of success. We allow our failures to dictate our strengths instead of using our strengths to overcome our failures.

There are a few exercises we can implement in our way of thinking to help us think about failure differently. Learning and comprehending the nature behind failure can help you continue to push toward your goals and not walk away from them discouraged.

A - It is important to understand that it is almost inevitable not to make mistakes or fail, we all make them.  How else will we ever learn the appropriate way to do the many things we have come to enjoy? Think back to when you learned how to ride a bicycle. For me, I know I fell many times of my first bicycle before I learned how to ride it. Imagine if I would have just said “you know what I'm done and tired of scraping my knees it hurts too much please get the bicycle away from me.” Then I would have never known the joys of bicycle riding. Sure there are plenty of things that we are quite knowledgeable of that did not involve failure but I strongly believe that somewhere somehow someone must have erred before we were introduced to it.

B - Examining your mistakes and failures can be valuable lessons and examples for future endeavors instead of road blocks. Taking a good look at your failures and mistakes allows you to perfect the outcome of your success and goals. Facing them head on makes us stronger and puts us closer toward our triumph. I find it fascinating how we can claim victory through acknowledging failures.

C - Failure’s are not who you are and they do not define you, they are actions that take place in one's life and something that occurs, but it definitely does not make us who we are. We experience failure such as we might experience a cold, we do not become it, we fight it, make it better and clear it up in order to move on. We can choose to learn from the experiences or take it personal and let it deplete us of our energy, energy that can be used toward celebrating the outcome of our successes.