Nobody likes failure and in fact, we will do almost anything to avoid it.
However, failure is unavoidable and Romans 3:23 proves it: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But sometimes failure proves to be the most effective way to succeed in life.
Someone once said, “A mistake which makes you humble is much better than an achievement that makes you arrogant.”
I learned a very valuable lesson back in my final year of high school. I was on my school’s track and field team competing in two races, the 1500 metre and the 3000 metre events. The 1500 m event was on a Thursday night, with my stronger race, the 3000 m event the next day in the afternoon. I was not that concerned about the shorter race because my main focus was on the 3000 m event. However, I was not careful about verifying the start time for the Thursday night race and showed up with my dad just as the starter’s gun went off.
My failure to show up to start this race resulted in a disqualification for both races.
My secondary school track career came to a disappointing and miserable end. It took quite a while for me to get over the embarrassment and shame of missing that race and letting my coach and teammates down, but I didn’t let this epic failure go completely to waste.
In the 35 years since that fateful day I have run in many, many races – and have been on time for every single one of them! I can’t undo my failure on the track that day (and believe me, I would love to do so!), but I can at least learn from it and let that failure move me forward.
Remember: a failure is not someone who falls down, it is someone who falls down and doesn’t get back up again.
As leadership expert John Maxwell would say, If you’re going to fail, you may as well fail forward!
