When things don’t go as planned, are they failures or opportunities?
When things don’t go as planned, do they turn out to be failures or opportunities? | A lot of people experiment with novel concepts, and when those concepts don’t work out for them, they give up on them and feel like failures. Others, after attempting new ideas and failing, refuse to give up and continue to try, and many of them succeed; those who don’t just enjoy the experience and turn their hands to something else. Others, after attempting new ideas and failing, refuse to give up and continue to try.
Why is it that some people opt to make the most of an event regardless of the result, while others consider it a failure if things do not go as planned? The solution is to adopt a positive outlook on every event that occurs in one’s life. Failures are opportunities to gain valuable insight that can be applied to future situations, while successes represent achievements that can be enjoyed right now. There are no such things as failures; rather, they are merely stepping stones on the path to future accomplishments.
Optimists develop two very important characteristics that allow them to view something that others may consider a failure as a learning opportunity. These characteristics are the ability to laugh at our own mistakes and the ability to dream big dreams. Optimists learn to laugh at their own mistakes and dream big dreams. When we place an unhealthy amount of importance on ourselves, we have a greater propensity to view our failures as irreversible, which frequently has the effect of undermining our sense of self-worth. When we are able to put our attention on our past accomplishments, view this setback as something we can laugh off, and keep dreaming of achieving success in the future, we are better able to preserve our optimism.
So the question is, how do we deal with failure in a way that allows us to perceive it as a tool for learning for the future?
- Test your assumptions about what constitutes a successful or unsuccessful endeavor. Failure and success are only viewed in a bad and positive light by us because of how we perceive them to be. Failure is an inevitable stage on the road to success, which is the goal you should strive to reach.
- Whenever you experience a sense of failure as a result of a poor result or outcome, you should instantly set new goals for yourself and decide how to proceed on your path to success. This idea is the foundation for an old proverb that many people are acquainted with, which advises people to “get back on your horse promptly after you fall off.”
- Examine a mistake from the point of view of the overall picture rather than the particulars of the picture. You may not have obtained the result you desired, but the fact remains that you were successful. Create a list of everything you picked up and improved upon as a result of the experience, and then celebrate those improvements. They are accomplishments, and the fact that there were not a few major failures but rather many smaller ones is something that should be praised.
Failure is an opportunity in disguise, and viewing it as such might help you eradicate the word “failure” from your vocabulary, which in turn can make it easier for you to have a positive outlook and achieve success in whatever you attempt.