You're Not A Failure

Everybody hates to fail. We don't like to lose, to not accomplish our goals, to come up short. Because of this, we become fearful. We fear failure so much that many times our fear cripples us before we even begin. And we create the mindset when we begin a new project; we will either achieve success, or achieve failure. We believe that success, along with failure, is something we obtain, but that is where our logic is wrong.

Failure is not something you do, it's something you don't do. Ultimately, failure isn't even real, failure is just a mindset. You fail a test because you did not obtain a passing grade, most likely due to not enough studying or effort. Regardless, you didn't achieve failure, you just didn't achieve success. Failing to pay the bills on time, again, happens due to a lack of action. Failure is not something you do, it's something you don't do.

Not being "good enough" at something does not make you a failure, it simply makes you not “good enough” at whatever goal you were trying to achieve. And this is the problem: many of us try something, aren't "good enough," and think we have failed. Unlike success, which is the achievement or obtainment of something, failure simply means you have not obtained it, yet. But failure is not an ending destination like so many believe it to be. Once you have succeeded, you're done; you've made it, you've accomplished that particular goal. When you don't succeed, or when you "fail," you aren't done. You can still keep working toward the goal; you still have something you can do.

So what about losing, isn't that failure? If you set out to win a gold medal, but lose, doesn't that mean you failed? No, because failure is not something that you can be. You can be successful, but you cannot be "failure." You can lose and not accomplish your goal but a loser and a failure are not synonymous, based purely off the definition of each word, our culture just likes to pair the two together. Like being successful, you can be a "loser," but you cannot be a failure. Because like success, losing is an achievable destination; the game is over, and you've lost. But it is not failure because failure is not an ending, it means you haven't made it yet, and you can still try again.

Failure is not an ending destination, just a new route to possible to success.