Have you ever felt that there is even more than you are currently achieving?
Perhaps you feel like you’ve hit a plateau. You’re struggling to make any meaningful move forward. Failing to become more than you currently are today may give you some issues. Potentially regarding your income or performance, or fulfilling your life goals, making you feel unhappy, miserable, frustrated or angry while you’re looking for ways to push beyond the barrier as you can see that thing in front of you, but you are unable to reach it yet.
Yet imagine when you break through that limitation, you’re reaching new goals, making things happen, and it is all working well. You are so happy because you’ve got this freedom and flexibility, you’ve got your finances in order, and the main thing is you’re completely congruent with who you are and are happier for it.
Now you may have been taught that failure is not an option. That is one of NASA’s famous quotes and a common thread going through many areas of people’s lives. Through schooling, having to pass exams to progress. Having to win awards to be recognised. Having to be great at sport, included in team selection. Then also into employment where failure to comply with rules, successfully implement a project or run within budget is non-negotiable, which can be a career-limiting experience if you fail. Then there are tests and evaluations, like your driving test or applying for a mortgage, that they’re looking for you not to fail. This drive to constantly succeed without failure puts enormous and unnatural pressure on you that isn’t needed.
That said, failure is an option! Failure is life’s way of giving you feedback, a point to show you which direction you need to put more effort into to succeed, and if you don’t fail, you can be in the position of not pushing yourself hard enough to grow.
Fail so you can grow happens naturally in so many areas of life.
If you’re not pushing limits inside your business to find out where boundaries are, you may find you wake up one day no longer having a business because your clients no longer see you as cutting edge or providing a service they need. Maybe what was an innovative service or product has become a commodity, and therefore you have to fight every day to maintain your current position.
With your own body, if you’re finding that you’re no longer progressing with your goal of losing weight, gaining muscle, and improving endurance, speed or stamina, maybe it is because you’re not pushing your body hard enough to make the adaptions it needs. So by not failing, you’re not giving your body what it needs to build to survive and thrive.
Sometimes you have to fail to be able to break through that plateau if you do want to make something better.
Success may feel nice in the moment, though growing through failure and celebrating many wins along the journey will help keep you going forever.
