I love life and the experiences life brings. For me, failure has been one of my greatest learning tools. It’s actually funny. I never thought I would see failure in the way I do now. Whenever I failed at something back when I was in junior high, I was a complete wreck! Today, I find myself after failing at something, to be inspired. Like Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.”
Let’s get real here for a moment:
Discouragement. Falling down. Not accomplishing what you set out to do. Inconsistency. Lack of motivation. Poor time management. Negative thoughts. Loosing sight of what’s most important. Remaining focused. These are all words that I’ve dealt with first hand. I’m sure you have to. Failure is something most people do not want to admit. Let me be the first to admit, I’ve failed a lot in my 27 years of living. I’ve failed tests, I’ve failed people, I’ve failed in my goals, I’ve failed at keeping my word and I have failed myself.
If you’ve never failed at something, how would you learn to not give up?
Failure by definition is the lack of success. If we were to measure success, we would find that you and I have our own standard of measurement for success. Meaning, we tend to define success differently. Although success is defined differently in our lives, you and I can identify when we are not successful in something. It is often, I find myself in certain seasons of life not living up to my full potential. (Can you identify with me?) It is in these seasons where mentally, spiritually and physically I am low and in constant battle. I easily identify myself with failure.
You are not a failure because you’ve failed at something.
If you are like me, you don’t like stress and you don’t like it when life gets hard. Most people that I know are this way. They want success and life to be a smooth journey. They want to live a life without problems, a life where there is no failure but we know this to not be reality. Life is full of ups and downs. If you haven’t noticed by now… Life is the greatest roller coaster ride you will ever get to ride on. 🙂
Success is not in giving up, but success is in the constant fight to keep pushing forward!
When feeling like a failure starts to creep into your mind, you have to remind yourself that you are strong, you are a warrior and you are an overcomer. The human mind is strong and my friend we have to take a stance in life. We will not give into the battle of defeat but we will continue to march forward with the faith and belief that we can conquer what we set out to do. You and I are not failures. We may have failed over and over in life but this does not mean we will continue to fail.
On this day, choose to fail forward. Each time in the future when you fail, each time you fall; You are failing and falling to learn how to advance forward in life. As Eric Thomas put it, “Don’t cry to quit, don’t cry to give up but cry to keep pushing.” You and I have what it takes to make it in life. It’s time to activate it!
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
– Thomas Edison
Josh Samarco 
Very well written. Honestly, giving up has been my greatest weakness in life. Hard to overcome when growing up I was always made aware of my ‘failures’ by the adults in my life but my accomplishments went un-noticed. But in Jesus I have overcome. There’s a constant battle going on though and daily I need to remind myself that even if I AM a failure, in HIM I have overcome; IN Him I have victory.
Pat, I certainly can identify with you. Growing up I did not get praised for a lot of my hard work and accomplishments. i felt like my parents didn’t care. I wanted to good for myself but I also wanted some affirmation from those closest to me. Thank you for sharing! “In Him we have the victory!!”