Over the last few months I’ve been at an impasse in my career. I’d made bold decisions and taken steps to change its direction, before grinding to a painful halt. It’s been a tumultuous journey fraught with an abundance of self doubt, anxiety, but above all the very fear of failure itself. “What if I fail”. “What if my failure is public and I’m humiliated”. “What if all I manage to achieve is a reputation in how not to do something”. “What if no one takes me seriously”. What if, what if, what if. Two simple words that have kept me wide awake at night paralysed at the endless possible outcomes of “what if”. It’s this most recent challenging juncture in my life that has forced me to reflect on the very nature of failure and my difficult relationship with it in the hope that I might overcome this crippling fear.

There is beauty in failure.

Drawing on my experiences over the years I’ve slowly come to realise this. It has taught me lessons; the kind of which come only through lived experience. We can either sink or swim. At this moment in time I’m managing to at least stay afloat. I’ve yet to master the swimming part. Surfing? Now that would be ideal.

Each time I’ve failed at something, I’ve in fact learned something new about myself that I did not know before. I gain a depth of insight into who I am, which no amount of success would have ever taught me. And with insight come key lessons on how I should change for the better.

This insight is priceless.

Failure, I have also found, has a way of forcing me to wake up from the slumber of routine and monotony of life to re-evaluate the status quo. It stops us dead in our tracks to unveil hidden truths. It’s a state of wakefulness and alertness. After being asleep for some time, such a state can be alarming and distressing. Being confronted with these truths can be a painful experience, one that I know all too well. But time and time again I’m reminded that it’s only through this pain that I can begin to learn, perhaps even evolve. The pain exists to bring my undivided attention to the malady that’s calling out for urgent treatment. Once it has my attention I can start taking the necessary steps that are needed to fix things, with clear focus and direction.

There’s something else quite beautiful about failure. And that is its ability to open up doors of opportunity I had not seen before. New paths materialise that did not exist, ones that could be better for me. Different possibilities emerge that force me to think about things in a new way. Amidst the perceived chaos of failure there can be order and an underlying wisdom I might have missed had I been successful instead. Silver linings offering a novel, indeed better way of doing things.

Failure keeps us on our toes, nimble, and able to adapt to changing tides, steering our life accordingly in order to reach our end goal and avoid getting swept off course along the way. It has a way of keeping us grounded and humble, nothing is guaranteed, a freeing thought in itself.

What’s more, failure and success are inextricably linked. To believe otherwise is to set yourself up for unrealistic expectations and inevitable disappointment. These two bedfellows exist to give life perspective, and meaning. We cannot have one without the other. The sweetness of success is sweeter once the bitterness of failure has been tasted. Throughout this current challenging juncture in my life I’m reminded that failure is inevitable. It is not a matter of if I fail, but when. It’s crucial, therefore, that I, we, change our mindsets to accept that it is a part of the fabric of life and not allow our fear of it to barricade us from realising our dreams and full potential.

Our ability to succeed depends on how we perceive and handle failure.