Failure Is An OptionSample

FAIL FORWARD

As I was talking a walk one day around the lake of the beautiful hills of Kodaikanal, I noticed something very peculiar about the trees around the lake. They were all leaning towards the lake. I was reminded of the picture in Psalm 1 of the tree that is planted by the rivers of water, bearing its fruit in season and staying fresh at all times. I immediately realized that these trees were falling forward for a reason. By leaning towards the water they were reaching out to the sun above and avoiding the dark shadows of the mountains behind them. 

Denzel Washington in one of his famous motivational speeches encourages young graduates to ‘ fall forward’. Failure as we read in the last devotional does have a huge impact on our lives. But we can decide the nature of its impact. I am not saying that you need to deny how you feel when you fail. Failure is not easy to handle. It does feel like we are going on a downward spiral. We tend to feel useless and insignificant. The emotions that failure brings with it are often hard to deal with depending on the nature and the severity of the failure. That’s why I can never over-stress the need to have mentors in our lives, the ‘go to’ people we can reach out to when we feel low. Also, do not shy away from seeking help from a mental health professional if you feel like you are unable to cope with the emotions that failure brings. Our mental well-being is as important as our physical well-being. Another tip is to learn to be ‘emotionally intelligent’ so that when such times take us unawares we are able to process our emotions positively. 

So, what does it mean to fail forward ? It simply means that I am able to gather the pieces around me when I have failed and move on. To be a survivor of failures, we need to learn to first of all lean towards our source of light, breath and life. God is our greatest comfort in the face of our failures. ‘Lean in’ towards Him when failures bring you down. There’s no better place than to find comfort and refuge in Him. Secondly, make use of whatever you have learned through the process of failure to build a better ‘you’. 

Failures can help you to become a better ‘you’ both in terms of who you are and what you can do. Failing forward literally means making failures one of you success tools. Fail forward and be the best you can be!