Thought of the Week: Failing or never trying?
I would love to get to know you all more out there in the Mojito Mother community, mommy blogging community, family travel community, or whatever community you belong to.
So I am going to start a new segment called Thought of the Week.
Simply put, I will pose a question or idea for us all to think about. I will write my thoughts on the question in this post and you can write your thoughts in the comment box below.
That way we all get to learn more about each other, and at the same time, we might open our minds up to new ways of thinking. For this to work effectively, I need your participation by sharing yorur thoughts, and encouragiing others to do the same. We also all need to remember to respect each others opinion.
Your thoughts?
So here we go. First thought of the week:
Which is worse, failing, or never trying?
I had a conversation about this with a good friend of mine the other day who had somethign tragic happen in her life. I knew exactly what she was going through as I’d been there before. I knew exactly the feelings of shame and regret that overwhelmed her.
So, I said exactly to her what a good friend had said to me at the time I went through it.
So what, you failed. You took a risk, and it didn’t work. But, you can’t get rewards in life if you don’t take risks. This time you learn so it won’t happen again.
We were in the game, and so was my friend. We weren’t on teh couch waiting for things to happen, we were oout there makign them happen. You can’t have success without failure. If you never try, then you never learn, and you never have the chance to receive the rewards that may come should you win.
I’ve studied a lot of entrepreneurs and successful people and none of them have gotten to the level they have without failing. Imagine if Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Barrack Obama never tried because they were afraid of failing.
I’ll leave you with one of my favourite videos from the great Michael Jordan. (After living near his college town and being married to Craig I have no other choice but to love this sporting legend.
What do you think about failing or never trying? Please share your thoughts and even your experiences of when you have failed or when you haven't tried.
Comments
kelly
Taking a risk or feeling the fear and doing it anyway can be a hard habit to learn but oh-so rewarding. Recognising that you have taken the risk and suceeded is exhilirating
kirri
Never trying seems the obvious answer to me….I would be interested to hear some opinions as to how failing could be worse than not trying. I guess failure can be very disheartening and de-motivating to some people but really….there can be no success without failure.
Too many of us think that failure is bad but it can be good. Like the advice you gave to your friend – taking risks may lead to failure but also to learning. Theres also the old adage about regrets and how you generally regret the things you did not try at all in life rather than the mistakes made.
I intend to keep on living hard and failing big 🙂
Caz
Absolutely! I’ll keep playing and picking myself back up when we fail. We had a massive financial failure last year and I must admit the wounds are still very fresh and it has kept me a little more fearful about taking certain risks. I actually just made a decision this week, where I told myself “Enough.” If I want my life to go in a certain direction, I need to stop worrying and being fearful about what might happen. I have to get out there and play again.
I always try to let my students know that making mistakes is a great thing. When they do make a mistake I always make a point of saying, “That’s great, because now it means you have learned something new. i want you to keep making mistakes otherwise you would have stopped learning.” I definitely learned something new from my mistakes 🙂 thanks for sharing Kirri
Bronnie
I believe that if you don’t try, you’re always going to wonder: ‘what if’. So you have to try. If you fail, well, that’s a part of the journey. If you win, that’s a bonus. I hope. xo
Caz
exactly!- Gotta live with no regrets. All though sometimes the regrets can come when you failed, if you focus it more on being a lesson than a mistake then you can overcome this fear of failure
Mrs M
I think we all suffer from both schools of thought.
If failure is recent then you may make a resounding statement to the effect of I’m never trying again. The failure was too hard to take.
Once time and perspective have set in then you tend to look at failure as a learning curve. Generally right about the time you think you are ready to have another go.
If you succeed then then you feel vindicated that the earlier failure was just a bump in the road to success.
If you fail again, then it gets harder to get back up.
I think someone said a quote along the lines of ‘you only fail if you fail to get back up’, or something to that affect.
I think we are still instinctively built to have a go. Somehow we always find a reason to believe.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
Caz
Great points Maria! It does take awhile to work out what the lessons of your failures are and it can sideline you for some time. I can’t wait until I vindicate some of my failures!!