Teen Space

Failure… A stepping stone

Man climbing stairway to success
Photo: © Win Nondakowit / 123RF Stock Photo

How often have you failed?

Accomplishment can never be overrated. Triumph is always coveted and success is always sweet. Every time we succeed we add a feather to our hat. Sometimes we are lucky; of course, we work really hard, and the combination of painstaking effort and destiny leads us to sweet success. But we often fail to see the brighter side to failure. If we haven’t failed, we’ve missed a multitude of probabilities of learning something new. We’ve lost on those opportunities that would have taught us realities of life the harder way. We’ve skipped the prospects of realization that would lead us to wisdom. We absolutely have by-passed the chance to experientially know the ways that ‘don’t’ work, before learning those that ‘do’. Failure deserves its share of credit although it is often unrecognized.

The world thrives on winners

We are taught that the world needs winners. And we all want to be one of those. Failure shatters us and sends us into bouts of anxiety and depression. We grow up believing that winners are cheered and losers are jeered. It’s astounding how we are unaware of our own potential and get demotivated and lose direction so easily. Real failure isn’t the inability to achieve something; it is the unwillingness to accept that one could potentially fail, and hence fail to learn from it. Isolation, inefficiency and inadequacy are optional reactions to failure. There is no letdown, no disappointment and no mistake that can prevent a positive step towards bettering oneself.

This does not mean we have to invest our energies in failure. We don’t ‘have to fail’ to succeed. But with putting more knowledge and experience to use, chances are high that we can reach our goal and meet our own expectations.

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Dr Shefali Batra is a Psychiatrist and Mindfulness Coach. Connect with her on Instagram @drshefalibatra and read more about her work at drshefalibatra.com.

Dr Shefali Batra

Dr Shefali Batra is a Psychiatrist and Mindfulness Coach. Connect with her on Instagram @drshefalibatra and read more about her work at drshefalibatra.com.