Olusola Aladejebi

I bet you have failed before. I have. I have even recently failed in a project. Almost nothing worked the way I had planned. Success is the opposite of failure. Let me quickly state that my usage of ‘failure’ does not imply a finality. Some of you my readers have gotten an ‘F’ in courses, been fired from jobs, been jilted by a supposed lover, ran your business bankrupt, lost a pregnancy. Failure is never palatable.

However, in my view, life is in phases. And it is OK to fail in some phases of life. Here comes the irony. The people who are most successful are also the most comfortable with failure. Their comfort with failure is not that they are satisfied with failure. Not all! They however consider that a failure is packed with lessons—tough needful lessons.

The wonderful lessons that a period of failure offers begin only when we acknowledge that we have failed. That’s a big thing to accept for people who are used to succeeding. The first big failure rocks them to their being! It looks as though their previous strings of successes have been surreal. Now is reality!

Some people have been so used to succeeding they never recover from their first big failure. They deny the failure. They rationalize it. Their palates have never tasted such ‘meal’. Then denial turns to cynicism. Cynicism leads to depression. It would be good if they come to terms with the fact that they failed in a thing. If Ego comes in the way of such acknowledgement, real progress stops.

I want you to note these 4 things as you deal with your failure(s):

It is OK to fail

It is just human. Only God that never fails. Human knowledge is limited. If you failed your exam, it is not cool, but everyone fails at one thing or the other. Few people tell of their failures so you wouldn’t learn of them. But believe me, everyone hits rock bottom sometimes. Parents and teachers therefore have an important role in guiding children on succeeding and failing. Children need to learn that while success is the goal, their self worth is not tied to a success. This understanding helps them if they fail (or should I say when they fail) at a thing so that the failure does not damage them.

It is not OK to be content with failure

While it is OK to fail, it is not OK to be content with failure. Some people have come to see the lack of success as a norm. ‘Others may succeed but it is not just for me’, they tell themselves. A child who has become used to failing may grow into an adult who sees failure as the usual and success as the exception. The reason a child may experience frequent failures often may be because he has been put in an environment that is way beyond his ability. This happens in schools.

Parents want their children ahead of the class appropriate for them. These parents want their kids to be achieve quickly! Unknown to them, they may just be on the way to severely damaging their children’s self efficacy. (Self efficacy is an individual’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task). Because these children are in classes beyond their ability they fail more than they succeed. Often these parents don’t retrace their steps by allowing the children ‘step down’ to places where their children can thrive better. The poor children may therefore settle in their minds that success was not cut out for them in the first place.

After Failure

The failure is a just set back. As it has often been said, ‘Failure is a knock down, not a knock out’. In boxing, when a boxer gives an opponent a series of heavy punches, he may fall on the ring canvas. The guy who is down has opportunity to stand up and fight back! And in some boxing bouts, the guy who has been knocked down twice eventually wins the match! Such should be the approach to failure. Swallow your ego and take the pill of acknowledgement of failure. Analyze the failure to identify why you failed. You may need to remove obstacles or build more capacity. Then develop the courage to confront the challenge again. At other times, a good calm analysis of the failure may reveal one is fighting a wrong battle. One therefore walks away to find a place where ones chances of winning is higher.

Some Success is indeed failure!

Life is in compartments (although they are all linked together). You probably know very successful academics and researchers who have lousy marriages; or very wealthy business owners whose children are wayward and hooked on drugs. All round success is beautiful and achievable. However, because humans are finite and lack ability and resources to be/do everything they want, they may need to choose to succeed here and fail there. Each person’s sense of value plays out here. The way people value things are so different that some would choose to win a game at the expense of betraying the trust of long-held friendship. Some would choose to cling to political power when they loose elections even though it would mean their country going up in flames. Isn’t such success actually failure?

All successes are not equal. All failures are not equal. So I wish you success in the most important things. And even if you fail once or twice or even three times, if it is really important, get up again and fight!



Choose Your Failures Carefully http://mouthpiece.com.ng/4406-2/