First Step to Learning from YOUR Failings

The first step towards learning from a failing is to acknowledge it and take responsibility for it. This sounds like the most logical thing to do when you have failed, simply acknowledge and take responsibility, but the reverse in the case in society. Have you met a student who passed an examination with flying colours? He typically will say of his result when he is asked that, “I scored 5 As and 3 Bs!” more often than not he will speak with a zest that tells you he is proud of his accomplishment. In the same vein ask a student who performed woefully in the same examination and you will hear something like, “They gave me 3 Ds and 4 Fs.” I want you to note the choice and usage of words here. The student who did well takes responsibility for his performance but the other who failed deflects responsibility and attaches it to the examination body. They failed him! This is a simplistic example but goes to buttress the point.

What is your attitude towards your failings? Do you quickly acknowledge that you have failed and take responsibility for it or do you deflect it to just about anybody who you can deflect it to? If you search for such escape routes you will find many – your spouse, children, religion, school, economy, environment, the weather, or even God. The problem with taking these escape routes is that they ensure you do not leave your condition. You will continue to remain in the rot because if it isn’t your fault that you failed then you will wait for the person or circumstance whose fault it is to correct itself or the condition for you.

If on the other hand you are set on a progressive course in life, you will acknowledge that YOU failed and take full responsibility for YOUR failing. Do not underestimate the importance of taking responsibility when it comes to your failings. As in all cases of taking responsibility, you suddenly feel empowered to succeed when next you do the same venture. Taking responsibility gives you the following advantages:

·        Shows you and people around you that you and you alone is in control of your life.

·        Impresses upon people that you are a responsible person.

·        Increases public opinion of you.

·        Enhances your personal sense of self worth.

·        Reduces fear of failing in the same and other ventures.

·        Makes you confident of the fact that you aren’t a passive failure

·        Increases your confidence of trying the same thing again and even trying other things.

·        Increases your chances of success in life.

Never be afraid of taking responsibility for your failings. Imagine losing these benefits simply because you aren’t able to acknowledge a failing and accept responsibility for it. 

Learning from Your Failings (Part 2)

The second and final step towards learning from your failings is the art of scrutinizing the reasons for failing deeply. I call it an art because I really consider it to be such. To explain my statement I’ll like to teach you about a method of questioning invented by the Japanese. It is called the “Five Whys Method.” It is a question-asking technique used to explore the cause and effect relationships underlying a particular problem. The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem. It is important to remember that the answer to each question then forms the basis of the next question. Let me give you an example.

Assuming you have identified a nagging problem that although you perform satisfactorily in your examinations, you don't score higher than a C. 

You then ask yourself:

Why don't I score better grades than Cs?” This is the first why. It may have an answer that goes thus: Because my tests and assignment scores are always low.

Then you proceed to the second why:

Why are my test and assignment scores always low?”

To this question your answer may be:

Because I don't take my academics seriously until a few weeks to the examinations.

And then the third why:

Why don't I take my academics seriously until a few weeks to the examinations?”

Because I perpetually resume late to school.

Fourth why:

Why do I perpetually resume late?

Because I depend on my poor mother for pocket money.

Why do I depend on my mother for pocket money?

Because, unlike other folks my age, I don't work during the holidays.

Now, note that the Fifth why is the root cause. At this point you stop and earmark a counter-measure. A counter-measure for this example may be: “I need to ensure that I take up a part-time job during the next holiday so I can earn and save some pocket money for school.”

If you follow this simple technique it will most certainly help you probe your way to the root cause of any problem.

I hope I succeeded in showing you ways to learn from every failing. Remember, failing is a natural happening in the path of success. A failure is a person who sits back and accepts a failing as his final destination!

Fear of Failing

Many of us are afraid of failing, at least some of the time. But atychiphobia, which is fear of failure, is when we allow that fear to stop us doing the things that can move us forward to achieve our goals.

Fear of failure can be linked to many causes. For instance, I remember running away from a debate competition which I was one of the favorites to clinch in primary school because my father was not supportive of the idea. At that time – for some reason I couldn’t explain – he felt I didn’t have what it takes to deliver in a competitive debate. Because of his reaction, I developed a grave fear of failure attached to any opportunity to speak in front of a crowd. I carried those negative feelings into adulthood but was lucky enough to overcome them.

Experiencing a traumatic event at some point in your life can also be a cause. For example, say that several years ago you gave an important presentation in front of a large group, and you did very poorly. The experience might have been so terrible that you became afraid of failing in other things. And you carry that fear even now, years later.

Some signs that you are afraid to fail in your endeavors and in life include:

·        A reluctance to leave your comfort zone and try new things. (explain briefly)

·     Self-sabotage – for example, procrastination, excessive anxiety, or a failure to follow through with goals.

·    Low self-esteem – commonly using negative statements such as "I'll never be good enough to make the examination," or "I'm not smart enough to get on that team," are proves that you have low self esteem.

·    Perfectionism – A willingness to try only those things that you know you'll finish perfectly and successfully. Also it shows in an attitude that isn’t willing to accept any error or imperfection in your activities.

It's almost impossible to go through life without experiencing some kind of failure. People who dare to live failure-free lives live so cautiously that they amount to nothing. In effect, they're not really living at all.

The wonderful thing about failure is that it's entirely up to us to decide how to look at it.

We can choose to see failure as "the end of the world," or as proof of just how inadequate we are. Or, we can look at failure as the incredible learning experience that it often is. Every time we fail at something, we can choose to look for the lesson we're meant to learn. These lessons are very important; they're how we grow, and how we keep from making that same mistake again. Failures stop us only if we let them.

Learning from Failings

There are different angles we can look at failings from. We can consider them to be fatal blows to our progress and give up or we can look at them as opportunities to learn something new. These are differing perspectives and they have differing consequences. It is of this I will like to speak to you about today – how to learn from failings.

Note that the constant in the equation of success is failing. To fear failings therefore does not help overcome it. The person who has truly overcome failings is the person who learns from every opportunity he or she has to fail. This means what should have had the potential of discouraging and in fact destroying future possibilities turns out to be the teacher. When Thomas Edison tried several times to make the electric bulb and didn’t succeed he reportedly said, “I didn’t fail. I learnt 10000 different ways the electric bulb cannot be created.” That’s the paradigm of a person who understands that failings are effective teachers.

The flip side of this is that people find it difficult to perceive how failings can be our teachers. I mean, how can something I detest be what will teach me how to do the thing I want to do effectively? It is always important to keep in mind the fact that failings are inevitable. Show me a person who never fails and I will show you a person who never tries to achieve anything. In fact, this same person will not amount to anything worthwhile. To establish this point I often ask folks how they learned to ride bicycles. Without an exception they all state that they fell several times in the process of learning. In fact some say that they didn’t know exactly when they perfected the skill of riding a bicycle. This is so because the transition between imperfection and perfection, between failings and mastering, is seamless. You move from one world to the other without knowing when you cross the border.

Overcoming the Fear of Failing

It's easy to find successful people who have experienced failure. For example:

·      Michael Jordan is widely considered to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time. And yet, he was cut from his high school basketball team because his coach didn't think he had enough skill.

·     Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest and most successful businessmen, was rejected by Harvard University.

·             Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin empire, is a high school dropout.

Most of us will stumble and fall in life. Doors will get slammed in our faces, and we might make some bad decisions. But imagine if Michael Jordan had given up on his dream to play basketball when he was cut from that team. Imagine if Richard Branson had listened to the people who told him he'd never do anything worthwhile without a high school diploma.

Think of the opportunities you'll miss if you let your failures stop you.

Failure can also teach us things about ourselves that we would never have learned otherwise. For instance, failure can help you discover how strong a person you are. Failing at something can help you discover your truest friends, or help you find unexpected motivation to succeed.

Often, valuable insights come only after a failure. Accepting and learning from those insights is key to succeeding in life.

Although there is always a chance that we will fail in some life ventures, there are a few ways to reduce the fear of failing:

·      Analyze all potential outcomes – Many people experience fear of failure because they fear the unknown. Remove that fear by considering all of the potential outcomes of your decision.

·     Learn to think more positively – Positive thinking is an incredibly powerful way to build self-confidence and neutralize self-sabotage.

·    Look at the worse-case scenario – In some cases, the worst case scenario may be genuinely disastrous, and it may be perfectly rational to fear failure. In other cases, however, this worst case may actually not be that bad, and recognizing this can help face the fear.

·      Have a contingency plan  – If you're afraid of failing at something, having a "Plan B" in place can help you feel more confident about moving forward.

If you are afraid of failure, you might be uncomfortable setting goals. But goals help us define where we want to go in life. Without goals, we have no sure destination.

Start by setting a few small goals. These should be goals that are slightly, but not overwhelmingly, challenging. Think of these goals as "early wins" that are designed to help boost your confidence.

For example, if you've been too afraid to talk to the new department head (who has the power to give you the promotion you want), then make that your first goal. Plan to stop by her office during the next week to introduce yourself.

Or, imagine that you've dreamed of returning to school to get your MBA, but you're convinced that you're not smart enough to be accepted into business school. Set a goal to buy a form fill and submit.

Try to make your goals tiny steps on the route to much bigger goals. Don't focus on the end picture: getting the promotion, or graduating with an MBA. Just focus on the next step: introducing yourself to the department head, and purchasing the form. That's it.

Taking one small step at a time will help build your confidence, keep you moving forward, and prevent you from getting overwhelmed with visions of your final goal.

Failings and Failures

So to redefine failure, it isn’t just about how little money you have stored up or even how little you earn. It isn’t how “small” your office is or how insignificant you think you are. Failure is when you live life aimlessly on the wrong path. Failure is also when you pursue a life goal either because someone else feels you should or when that is the direction society is headed. The failure is the teacher who is teaching only to earn a salary. The failure is the nurse who does it simply because she didn’t have any other thing to do. Also – and get ready for this one – the failure is the Local Government Chairman, State Governor or even President who is occupying that hallowed office only because he had the money to buy it or because “people said he should contest.”

Failing is an occurrence, a happening, an instance. Failing is external. It is a thing that happens to people when they get out of their comfort zones and try something different. Failing is a natural episode in the process which leads to expertise. A failure, on the other hand, is a person, a way of life, a life pattern. Being a failure is internal. It isn’t something that happens to a person but the person himself. A failure is a person who depressingly sits back in his pool of sorrow and feels he can never be anything better than he is at the moment. A failure is someone who has truncated the failing process by making it his destination.

So the question which naturally arises is whether you fail or are a failure. It was the Late Maya Angelou that said, “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” Believe me when I say to you that I know firsthand the pain and difficulty that comes from failing. Interestingly though, I will not sacrifice the fleeting peace of not trying to take away the excitement of trying something. I understand that it is only those who dare to fail that can ever achieve anything worthwhile.

Finally I’ll like you to consider the golden words of Winston S. Churchill: “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

A Discourse on Failings

I will like to begin with a question which will sound like a rhetoric one but of which in all intents and purposes I desire that it triggers a chain reaction of thoughts in your heart. Here it is: have you ever failed in your life? It is safe for the goal of this discuss for me to assume that the answer to this question is yes. I say this because I have personally had several bouts with failings and although with every bout I feel like a loner on a deserted island, I have witnessed the desire many have to break free from the bondage of failure and realized that I am not alone after all!

Funny as it may seem, not too long ago – precisely during my university years – I considered some people impregnable by the sharp claws of failings. I remember a colleague we tagged “Prof.” He was a brilliant chap and deservedly excelled with a First Class degree in Chemical Engineering. On one occasion he was asked if he had ever failed academically and he surprised most of us by stating emphatically that he has. He was asked to elaborate and he explained that he once set a goal to score an A grade in a course but got a C. That didn’t in any way sound like a failing to students like me who were oscillating between Cs and Ds.

Sometime later I understood what Prof meant when I heard the legendary Earl Nightingale define success as “The progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” This definition was revolutionary to my psyche because it meant two things:

·    The first is that success is a journey. This means you don’t become successful when you attain something or even a goal but you become a success the moment you begin a journey towards a predetermined end.

·       Second to that is success is predetermined. This means that the success isn’t just the person who attains a big office or becomes rich but the person who is doing intentionally what he or she decided to do. A success is hence the school teacher who is a school teacher because that is what he wants to be and do. The success is the nurse who chose that profession herself and is doing a great job at it. This also applies to every other field of human endeavor.

$86,400 daily...

Dear Readers, can you imagine waking up this morning and credited to your account is $86,400 USD. However you only have 24 hours to spend it.

Just like the biblical manna from heaven, this blessing works by the same principle. By the time you go back to bed, 12 midnight, whatever money you have not spent would be wiped out off your account. By 6 am the next morning, you will be credited with another $86,400 USD and at 12 midnight your account will again be emptied.

That is exactly the amount of wealth God gives to each and every one of us on a daily basis. God has made the provision for every man on earth to be equally endowed with this currency. So in actual fact every human being is equally wealthy according to God’s divine Providence.

The wealth I am referring to is, the wealth of TIME. It is the only wealth every human being comes to the earth with. We are all endowed with it equally. Everybody that is born on the surface of this earth, has this wealth. “Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose” - Thomas Edison

Ladies and gentlemen, this wealth is actually of more value than natural resources (petroleum, gold, diamond, gas etc.). It is the only wealth that is more valuable than human resources. The resource of time is the ultimate resource. Time is the ultimate wealth.

You may ask “How could time be more valuable than human resource? Oh yea! The reason is because a human resource is limited to the duration of his/ her lifespan, while time is unlimited.

“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.” - Margaret Bonanno

Human resources could be purchased and sold, but not time. Once lost, time can never be regained. The value of time is only equal to the value of life. As a matter of fact life itself is measured by time. Time therefore is the measurement of life. Do you love life? Then don’t waste time!

NOTE: This article was written by Sunday Adelaja, founder and senior pastor of Embassy of God, an evangelical-charismatic megachurch in Kiev, Ukraine. It was published with permission of the author.

Find Your Passion and Pursue it

A great fire burns within me… - Vincent van Gogh (Dutch author)

When a person is passionately in love nothing holds him or her back. If you have been passionately in love with someone you’ll know what I mean. No obstacle is insurmountable. No expense in too high. No distance is too far. You can pay the price for your love because of one thing – passion.

Passion is to love what coal is to a steam locomotive. Passion is to a person what petrol is to a vehicle. Passion drives your engine. Passion moves you from point A to B. Passion gives you a chance to make a difference.

Without passion we are impotent. Without passion we stay in limbo. Without passion apathy guides our actions. You can be sure of one thing – your chance of success is proportional to passion level.

Now, in the same way that a person who is passionately in love with another can scarcely be restrained, a person who is passionate about his or her goals can scarce be restrained from accomplishing them. Success isn’t an option for the passionate person. It is an obligation. It doesn’t matter how many times you say to him or her that the set goal won’t be a reality because, for as long as he or she is concerned, it will be a reality.

I plead with you NOT to try chasing a dream you aren’t passionate about. That is one of the sure paths to failure and nonfulfillment. Instead, find your passion and pursue it!

Dream Killers

When initially our hearts are encapsulated by dreams which excite we have a tendency of feeling nothing shall be impossible for us. This enthusiasm though wanes and there is always a tendency to kill the dream you gave birth to. In fact, it is my ernest opinion that nobody can kill your dream except with your consent. In effect, you are the only viable “ dream killer” in your life.

Three things in our lives exterminate our dreams. Paolo Coelho masterfully crafted the following words in his book, The Pilgrim, and I will love to share them with you. Over to Paolo: 

‘The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight.

‘The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are fighting the good fight.

‘And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the good fight.’

These three – time, certainties, peace – are dream killers we must all look out for.

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Be Friendly

A man who has friends must be a friend. - Proverbs 18:24

I have met folks who say to me, “I don’t have any friends and I am happy with it.” Then they continue to expound on their strange perspective, “When you bring people too close you give them an opportunity to take you for granted. After all, ‘familiarity breeds contempt you know.’” Have you heard something like this before?

To me this line of thought is like the classic allegory about the debate between a pessimist and an optimist over a half empty (or is it half full) glass of water. I say so because rather than see friendship only as a platform where people take advantage of our vulnerabilities, there are a zillion other ways to see it.

You could see friendship as an opportunity to experience people that aren’t like you. There are 7 billion people on this planet and the common sense of science tells us that there isn’t any one of these 7 billion people that are exactly like you. That makes you the most unique creature on the surface of the earth! That also means there are 7 billion other unique beings that are worth experiencing merely for their uniqueness.

You could see friendship as a complimentary platform. If you have studied yourself for some time you’d have noticed that there are some natural gifts and skills you have. Now, if you have some it also means that there are others (countless actually) that you don’t have but someone else does. So if you need to embark on a project that needs a natural gift or skill that you don’t have what do you do? You tap into those of friends around you (that is of course if you have friends).

You could see friendship as a trust. We all encounter times when our hearts are broken and the blue skies are darkened – it is a common path. When you have friends you’ll have shoulders to lean on and cry. You’ll have hearts you could empty yours of needless chatter into. You’ll have eyes you can look into and know that you are in safe hands. In summary, you’ll have a place you can trust when you are lonely.

Now the BIGGEST part of it all: If you have friends you can be all the above and much more to them! This way, you aren’t just taking from but giving to others. Isn’t this the essence of life?

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Time to Believe

                               “Be believing, be happy, don't get discouraged. Things will work out.”                                             ― Gordon B. Hinckley

When life gets tough on us and situations build up beyond our seeming capacity to handle them we tend to abandon the one thing we shouldn’t – our capacity to believe.

Some people believe that whatever happens is meant to happen. This is the realm of fate where you accept the result of whatever comes your way. I know folks who speak of fate but haven’t yet met a person who perfectly holds on to this in actions. To hang on to fate is to accept even the results of mediocrity and so I really don’t accept it.

I believe that to live successfully you should believe in some things that govern our existence. Some of these are:

Believe in God. If you would be successful and enjoy both the process and the result, you should believe in God. To believe in God takes away the weight of major decisions and unexplainable circumstances. You simply realize that God is available for you and is watching over your every step. You realize that he will comfort you at times of difficulty and strengthen you in weakness.

Believe in yourself. Some people find it easy to believe in someone other than themselves. This stems from a person’s perceived worth of him/herself. If you think you are worth your own confidence, you will believe in yourself. If you think you aren’t worth your confidence you will not believe in yourself. Whatever you believe in this aspect determines how far you will get in life.

Believe in Humanity. It is important that we believe in humanity. I know this may be difficult sighting the various atrocities and wickedness we see around us but we should be willing to believe that essentially humanity is good and worth believing in. Like Gandhi once opined, "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

Believe in your dreams. It is possible to have a dream and not believe in it. Sometimes our dreams overwhelm us and we feel they cannot possibly be a reality. Some other times we doubt that our dreams are worth pursuing in the first place. If you would be an achiever you should believe in what you want to achieve. Have confidence that your dream is worth the effort. Believe that indeed the fulfillment of your dream would be beneficial to the world around you.

When you fail to believe – in God, yourself, humanity and in your dreams – you will encounter many painful failures in life. Easy things will look difficult for you and you will be quick to prematurely acclaim yourself a failure. You want to succeed? Believe!

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Be Fearless

Fear is natural in humans. I believe that fear is a God-given trait of every person. I have always thought that fear is learned with time and experience. I thought that fear is adopted from our environment but I now think otherwise. What led to my change in perception was when I realized that my 4-month-old baby* was afraid of falling down. She’ll do what she can to hold on to your shirt when you lift her up. She also did the same when the lights go off at night. Prior to this time she had never fallen down from a height and neither have I sat her down to explain the there was something to fear in the dark. This to me meant that experience was out of the question. She must have been wired with fear to serve as a deterrent to pain and suffering.

Now, that’s where the good news on fear ends. In as much as fear comes naturally to us, it shouldn’t guide our lives and decisions. When fear is left unchecked it becomes a menace to both its victim and the people around him or her.

The effects of fear are far reaching. It cripples a person and makes him inactive. This means that an action that would normally have been a piece of cake becomes very difficult to do. Fear shuts down your ability to think critically and coherently. The period a person is afraid is the worst possible time to strike a deal. This is because the critical aspect of the mind that helps to analyze issues rationally shuts down. Fear inflates and exaggerates an obstacle. When you are afraid you consider easily surmountable obstacles as high insurmountable mountains.

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”  ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

To conquer and counter the effects of fear you should develop courage. Courage isn’t the absence of fear but the boldness to act irrespective of the fears you have. A courageous person knows exactly what he wants from life and is willing take the necessary actions needed to actualize these goals. This he does whether he is afraid or not. What happens when you take such bold actions of courage is that the obstacle shrinks. My advice to you? Be fearless!

*Jamila is now 10 months old

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