This morning, I happened upon a ‘Goalcast’ clip in my Facebook feed. The montage centered around Lisa Kudrow, of ‘Friends’ fame, talking about being fired from Frasier. At the time, Frasier was thought to be a massive upcoming hit (which it was) and Kudrow talked of her utter embarrassment and dark days after being ditched after the show’s pilot. She was apparently ‘heartbroken.’
Of course, we know that the happy ending, not to mentioned mega-bucks and super-stardom, was just around the corner. A year later, Lisa was cast in a pilot called Friends like us which of course, became super-hit Friends.
Fear of failure is something that holds so many of us back from reaching our goals, grabbing opportunities and realising our dreams.
Yet, often our greatest failures lead to our biggest achievements.
How many people have a story about how something that seemed to be a devastating failure/disaster/breakdown/misadventure at the time, actually led them down a completely different life path – often one which they later realise they were meant to be on the whole time.
Missing out on something that you really want is always going to be a bitter pill to swallow at the time – and a little wallowing is perfectly fine. But it might help you to pick yourself up after the breakup/failed interview/anxiety relapse, to know that millions of people around the world testify that similar dreadful situations, with hindsight, were actually the best things that could have happened to them.
We’ve all heard the old adage: ‘As one door closes, another opens.’ As true as this can be, in my experience it’s been more a case of finding another door. Or even breaking down a wall.
When I think to my biggest failures in life, not only have they led me down completely different paths, but they’ve also taught me so much about myself.
We learn so much for from a loss than a win.
All things considered, it’s quite bizarre really that we avoid even the risk of failure, when actually it can do so much for us. What if we turned things on their head, and actively sought it out?
What if we became ‘failure hunters’ and every day, looked for new opportunities in which we might fail dreadfully and spectacularly? What if we said “YES!” to performing that speech, going on that date, travelling solo to that place we’ve wanted to go to forever…
Imagine if we approached our goals in this way, knowing that there actually wasn’t as much risk as we initially believed, because we’d either win, learn or find ourselves walking in a completely different, and quite wonderful, new path; a path that feels like home.
Have your failures led to success? Have you learnt from your losses? I’d love to hear your thoughts:
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