Do you feel like giving up? Did you think you had some traction, only to discover you were on ice and sliding downhill? In those times, it can be tempting to give up, throw in the towel and sulk in a corner. It may feel hopeless. But it’s not over until you say it’s so!
Yogi Berra was famous for his yogiisms. Even the BBC noted while some of his sayings were silly, this one has become quite helpful:
“It ain’t over till it’s over.”
Yogi Berra
All of us want to succeed. But very few of us want to take the steps to success if that means we fail at something. I get it. Who says, “Yes! Give me more failure, please!”
Honestly, until today I wasn’t aware of who William Whewell was. The guy was a renaissance man long after that era was over. He was an Anglican priest, scientist, polymath, and philosopher. Whewell gave us the words “scientist” and “physicist” among others. In short, he was a genius.
Yet, he also saw the value of trying, failing, learning, and trying again to succeed. We may be risk-averse, but without the possibility of failing, there is no path to success. Failure and achievement go hand in hand.
We each have a choice on whether to make something of significance or to avoid the risk of failure and appearing foolish. Each thought we have towards a goal has to be tested. Let’s face it. not every thought we have is going to succeed in the real world.
In a world full of manufactured goods, we are tempted to believe that since that product looks consistent and perfect now, there was never any failure involved. However, I have seen how much trial and error goes into a product and marketing campaign. No one gets it right on the first try.
An assembly line may create a consistent, perfect product now, but how did that product get to that point? Even the assembly line took some testing, failing, and readjusting before it ran smoothly.
Even then, it may not run perfectly one-hundred percent of the time. Has anybody heard of product recalls? Hopefully, a company learns and improves from each one.
So I encourage you to take some steps to achieve today. Be bold enough to try, make some mistakes, learn, and climb the steps to success.
Are you afraid to fail? Who loves it? Who wouldn’t like to achieve something perfectly and with zero failures? But that isn’t the way life works. There is a connection between failure and achievement. In fact, I would say you can’t have one without the other.
Nobody has it all figured out at the beginning. No matter how much we plan, it is impossible to account for every possible failure or outcome. C. S. Lewis says it best with this quote.
“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.”
C. S. Lewis
A few years back, I was on a project that involved the edition of a book. This book had great sales and we were going to update the design and illustrations.
As we were planning for the release, I heard a phrase that made me cringe; “Failure is not an option!” As the comment echoed in the room, I thought, “Well then, we are in serious trouble, because that doesn’t allow for any improvement.”
If anything is going to change, failure is always an option. Failure and achievement go hand in hand. Sure, we can plan and strive to avoid obvious mistakes.
Failure is success if we learn from it. But even then, we have to be careful. What didn’t work before could work today, and vice versa.
As we get older, we can be tempted to turn down ideas that didn’t work yesterday but could be wildly successful today. Failure is an option if you want success. We have to face those fears!
Sure, we can choose to do nothing. It is an option if we fear failure. And it is a choice. Staying put is a choice that guarantees no failure, nor success. But it is also is a choice that leads to regret.
It is better to encounter short-term failure because we tried than long-term failure because we were afraid of the possibilities. While doing nothing is an option, I hope you decide to take the risk, learning from failure, and succeeding is far better than wondering if you could have been successful.
There will be some challenges and problems. Have you noticed that? They especially like to show up on a Monday morning. But if we want to get anywhere, we have to stop making excuses. A quote by George Washington Carver reminds me that finding blame is nothing more than a bad habit.
“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”
George Washington Carver Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2022. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_washington_carver_158549, accessed January 10, 2022.
George Washington Carver
A while back, I read a book entitled, QBQ: The Question Behind the Question. The premise of the book is when we face a challenge, the questions we ask ourselves determines whether we take personal accountability or not.
Do we play the victim, or do we make things better? Is it possible a bad habit of making excuses drags us into a victim and entitlement mindset? I say the answer is yes.
We can choose to succeed by ditching the excuses. It starts with the questions we ask ourselves when we face a challenge. And the questions we ask can be a habit. Let’s do what we can today to make a positive impact instead of playing the blame game.
“Any time you stop you stop striving to get better, you’re bound to get worse.”
Pat Riley quoted in:
Jerome, Jerry. Instant Inspiration: Using Quotes to Guide You to Your Goals. 1st ed.
Instant Wisdom Publishing, 2003.
There is no middle ground when it comes to growth. Either we are getting better or worse each day. Either we are contributing to the solution or part of the problem.
The temptation in life is just cruise through. We tend to gravitate towards comfort and inactivity. As we get older, we tend to think growth is behind us. But nothing can be further from the truth!
Our growth is not limited by our age. Physically, we may have stopped growing years ago. (Or at least, we stopped growing vertically and began growing horizontally!) But there is always something to learn. There is always a new challenge to confront and solve. Life is much more than just cruising into obscurity.
When I began my graphic design career, many of the older designers were resistant to computers. They had been creating layouts with materials such as rubylith and huge, bellows cameras. They knew how to create layouts quickly and efficiently. The new way of doing things felt uncomfortable. Many of them stubbornly held onto the old ways until they were forced to change, or they left their jobs and careers.
At the time, I thought surely the designers of my generation would have learned a lesson. Some have. Others are just as resistant to change. A graphic design career changed from a primarily paper and printing process to online graphics. Some have stubbornly held on. Others have faded into obscurity as new ways of doing things took hold.
Each day, we have a choice between getting better or worse. There is always a new way of doing things. Don’t get so comfortable that you resist growing and changing. Always be looking for new techniques and new technologies. Otherwise, we risk becoming irrelevant.