Our culture paints failure in a bad light.
We’re taught to avoid it at all costs.
Because cool people don’t fail.
Because it’s bad news.
Because failing means you’re doing something wrong.
Or headed the wrong way.
I used to feel that way.
I used to feel incredible anxiety knowing that failure, being the jerk that it is, was lurking in the shadows and jumping at every opportunity to tie my shoestrings together so I’d trip and fall.
And I did.
I used to internalize every failed attempt, every stumble, every fall.
I believed that, because I was failing, I was a failure.
Then something happened.
I realized that failure is actually my friend.
Wait, what?
Okay, my brutally-honest-to-the-point-of-tears friend.
[Tweet “One day I woke up and realized that walking around in a cloud of defeat wasn’t glorifying to God.”]
One day I got sick and tired of being knocked down and staying there.
One day I made the decision to change my mindset and starting looking at failure from a different perspective.
And you know what?
I learned that failure is actually a powerful vehicle that allows me to get where I want to go.
So instead of running from failure, I started inviting it into my life.
You know, to hang.
Yeah, it can be harsh and to-the-point, but at least it’s honest and it shows me ways in which I can change and grow.
If I choose to learn from it.
And really, success is made up of a long and tangled string of failures.
Yes, you will fail.
If you are striving toward something of worth, it’s inevitable.
But you are not a failure.
You are simply failing forward.
