When you’re faced with a life-changing decision and you’re standing at the crossroads, do you find yourself asking…
- What if I make the wrong choice?
- What if I ultimately wind up failing?
These questions are not unique however. They’re a shared human behavior that causes us all to want to succeed and be accepted favorably in everything we set out to do.
I confess that in my own life my successes seem to equal my failures. But I don’t walk away from either without learning something – extracting a better understanding of myself, my desires and the environments I need in order to thrive both personally and professionally.
Author Sarah Dessen writes in her book “Along for the Ride”, “Life is full of screw-ups. You’re supposed to fail sometimes. It’s a required part of the human existence.”
Failure is not a sign of weakness as many of us believe. Courage does not come with success, but rather with the ability to take a chance, fail and then pick yourself back up to start all over again. That is real courage and strength.
Self-help guru Anthony “Tony” Robbins says, “Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.”
