Embracing Failure as a form of Success | Devotional
At some point in life, there will be doubt and skepticism. Am I doing this right? Am I fated to do this for the rest of my life? Is this the right decision to make? We all ask ourselves these questions. But sometimes, this fear of failure and taking risks might just be the one holding us back from actually achieving success and happiness in our lives. In a TED talk by Astro Teller, founder of X,formerly known as Google X, we explore the mindset of facing failure in the world’s greatest innovators.
Firstly, to start off, we must keep reminding ourselves to dream big and to keep thinking big. Never lose sight of the big picture! Next, we need to have concrete visions and concrete plans. What Astro means by this is that we need to have a plan of how we want to make our big dream into reality, no matter how extreme or impossible it may seem, we should try to stick to it with the best of our ability.
However, although it may seem contradictory, we must also try to kill our ideas as early on as possible. Constantly try to challenge your ideas and only then can you gain true insight into your plans and renew your interest and determination in making your dreams into reality. This optimism in dreaming big sometimes needs some skepticism to breathe life and reality into your visions. Coupled together, you will have a dream with a plan that is both achievable and concrete.
How we can do this is also to do the most difficult things first. By bringing up the most difficult aspect of your plan, you’ll actually be able to find the loopholes and the gaps in what you actually thought may be a reasonable and achievable plan. With that, you constantly will improve on yourself and also gain knowledge into how to further develop your plans. It’s in our human nature that being audacious and working on risky things make us feel uncomfortable. However, what we can do is to embrace and encourage it. By creating this environment for both ourselves and the people around us, we start to lose that fear of difficulty and that worry of what will happen to us if we fail.
The only way for people to work on big, risky things and to get them to face the most difficult tasks first is to make it a path with the least resistance. Instead of scowling in the face of failure, smile at it! You’ve found a challenge and that’s good! It means that you have just found another way to further strengthen your plans! This enthusiastic skepticism isn’t the enemy of boundless optimism, but the perfect partner. It unlocks the potential in every idea and every dream. So go out there and dream big! Don’t worry about what happens when you fail! After all, failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is just a minor inconvenience, not a defeat. It is just a temporary detour, not a dead end.
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