Does This Even Make Sense?
At first this formula appears to make no sense because we tend to see failure as the polar opposite of success. But we must look farther into what failure actually is and what it can become with the addition of perseverance.
Trying to avoid failure in life is like trying to avoid breathing air to live; you simply can’t do it. If you have successfully avoided it then you are probably dead. You are not even trying to live. The inevitable failures that we will face can either be used for our own benefit or just experienced. With these two options, only one will yield success. The other one will only ever result in failure.
Fear Means Your On The Right Track
We must get over the fear of failure, and see that we have nothing to fear in failure except not using these opportunities to learn. If we look to our failures with a perspective that even though we fail we can become even better. Then we have not failed. Approaching our dreaded defeats in this way will actually allow our failures to become what we stand upon to reach our success.
With this mindset in place, we should be actively seeking out areas that may lead to our so called failures. If we do fail in trying, then we can learn from each shortfall and overcome every obstacle. It is all the more rewarding once success is grasped, if our failed attempts have led us there. Failure is the path on which we grasp how to grow, and if we simply do not give up when we fail. Then eventually we will succeed.
Try, Fail, Repeat (The Trying Part)
A common example for improvement is public speaking. If you want to become better at the nerve-racking, avoided art of verbal communication, then put yourself in a place where you have to speak. If you fail, then do it again. Only by this will you eventually succeed.
If the proverbial towel is thrown in after the first failure in the pursuit of a goal. Then failure only produces failure. No one ever succeeds the first time without some form of failure faced along the way. Even though at times it may seem that some people do. On the path they have taken, they have faced their own hidden failures to reach the place of success where they now stand.
The one who chooses not to try and use failure for what it can become will get a different result then the one who does.
Option 1: Failure = Failure
The one who chooses not to try and use failure for what it can become will get only failure in return. Failure alone can not produce anything but failure.
Option 2: Failure + Perseverance = Learning + Perseverance + Understanding
If failure is teamed with perseverance then the person who uses failures to their advantage will learn more about what led to failure, and understand how to succeed in future efforts. The use of perseverance always leads to more perseverance because perseverance is built upon perseverance itself. It is only by using perseverance that the capacity of perseverance can be increased.
Now to prove with a little math, which I am a fan of, that failure does equal success when it is accompanied with perseverance.
Warning: The following contains math operations that may bring back haunting memories of bygone math classes long forgotten. Proceed with caution
Failure + Perseverance = Learning + Perseverance + Understanding
↓ *
Failure = Learning + Understanding
Learning + Understanding = Success
Failure = Success
*(perseverance cancels out, in a good way)
It’s Not What You Face, It’s What You Overcome
Of the stories of men and women in history, the greatest of them faced the possibility of failure time and time again. But with each unsuccessful attempt they chose not to let failure determine their future. Those who failed and persevered through it all to reach greatness, simply kept on swimming.
In the end we must learn that failure is not something to be avoided but overcome. This is the best way to reach what is sought in life.
Don’t let your failure just be your failure, stand upon it to succeed.
Life, keep it simple and live it
Josh