Why your failures are some of your greatest assets and how they can actually teach you more than success

By Angeli Marie Shaw

Nobody wants to fail. It can be an indication that we’re not on track, that we’ve missed something, or we have more to learn. We can experience a wide range of emotions such as sadness, shame, disappointment and embarrassment and these emotions, well they hurt.

The thing is, when we hold onto a negative perception of ourselves, we may feel quickly defeated when faced with further challenges. We become self-critical, and each obstacle, mistake or failure can seem like proof that we can’t succeed.

Where failure has its biggest impact is when we tie it to our sense of self-worth, which affects our self-esteem and lowers our level of self-acceptance. In fact, the expectations that we fail to meet are often created by ourselves, in our own heads. Failure is significant.

But what makes failure significant? Well, we actually learn more from our failures than from our successes. And not only do we find out what doesn’t work so we can make adjustments in our future attempts, we also learn about ourselves.

There’s growing research and science around what it means to fail and in fact, failure has been a proven prerequisite for success. But there is a catch… failure will only work to your advantage if you learn from them.

So what exactly do we learn from failure? Let me tell you, it’s a lot more than you think. Failures teaches us flexibility, adaptability and how to overcome obstacles. From it, we learn how to build resilience and this is an important life skill to build, as resilience helps in other ways too.

It can help you adopt behaviours to overcome change, and also contribute to building a growth mindset. It teaches us to use change to our advantage, and that we may need to change our approach to things.

Think of Thomas Edison, who famously failed more than 1,000 times before inventing the lightbulb or Oprah Winfrey who was fired from her first reporting job after being told she was ‘unfit for tv’. Had they not learned anything from their failures, do you think they would’ve achieved what they did?

For me personally, my own experiences with failure have brought many valuable lessons and whilst I didn’t always learn them quickly, I did learn. I learnt what works and what doesn’t, I was encouraged to explore and re-envision my goals.

I was able to seek inspiration in order to grow as well as inspire others along the way. I was able to re-connect with my creativity and revise my approach to things, which created opportunities that weren’t there before. But my biggest lesson was learning more about myself and this is where most of my growth has occurred.

Honestly, if I could turn back the clock, I would never take my failures back, in fact, I wouldn’t wind the clock back at all. Yes failure hurts, but it’s all part of life’s design.

The reality is, sooner or later everyone fails at something, but not everyone learns from their failures as most people struggle to grow and learn from their defeats, but it can be done.

View failure as delay, not defeat. Take time to reflect on some of your biggest learning experiences and you will probably find that they came from situations of great challenge. Through the obstacles, suffering and failures in our lives we learn and develop most.

In fact, you could say that the bigger the challenge, the bigger the potential gain to be had. In regard to success, we actually learn very little in comparison to failure, other than the realization that we can probably repeat this success in future similar scenarios.

So when we do fail, however unpleasant or painful it might be, the opportunity to learn is there and it’s this learning that inspires growth and development. It can help you become a better person leading to a more successful person, both personally and professionally.

Embrace failure and accept yourself and your situation as part of life. And remember that failure and success go hand in hand, as success usually comes as a result of past failures. Be tenacious; never give up and don’t stop trying.

“The one who falls and gets back up is stronger than the one who never tried. Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying” – Roy Bennett

There will be times when you succeed and times when you fail. Both are equally important. Keep going, I believe in you!

Love & Bliss, Angeli xxoo

Angeli is a Holistic Empowerment Coach, Mindset Mentor and founder of The Bliss Coach.

To work with me in 2023, get in touch by visiting www.theblisscoach.com.au or follow us on our socials @theblisscoach to find out more.