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Can you ignore your desires and still be happy?
Who among us has never faced failure at some point in their lives? Most of us have probably felt that terrible feeling when a job interview goes awry, or we fail a final exam, or we're rejected by the college we've always dreamed of attending, or even when we fail to stick to a diet or follow a healthy lifestyle.
Yes, failure can be one of the toughest experiences in your life. It can cast a shadow over your life, disrupt your balance, cloud your judgment, and fill you with a dull sense of sadness and bitterness. It can even lead you to blame yourself for complete failure and inadequacy, or cause you to lose all confidence in yourself.
However, here's where you may overlook a positive aspect, a bright side that comes with every failure or loss: The lessons learned and the accumulated experiences.
So, let's shed light on five of the most important lessons that failure can teach us:
· Real-World Experience:
Failure is the best teacher in life. No one can forget the reasons for their failure and the wrong steps they took that led to it. In reality, we learn with each failure, gaining a deeper understanding of life through the experiences we go through, whether positive or negative. We become closer to the real world with all its details and challenging experiences.
· Failure Teaches us to Embrace Change:
When we fail, it often means that we've made a mistake, taken a wrong step, or maybe acted at the wrong time. So, you must examine it critically: What caused my failure? What did I do wrong? Then, you can choose a more accurate and healthier way to avoid failure in the future. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
· Failure Restores Growth and Balance:
Often, after every failure, a comprehensive evaluation takes place automatically. It's part of the healthy recovery process after a loss. The evaluation starts from the beginning, going through each step and identifying every reason for error or failure. In the end, we can figure out what truly matters to us. Does work alone make us happy, or do other life details also matter to us? Do we need balance in our lives? For example, if you consider that you failed in launching a personal business, you learn the importance of the experience and remember the reasons that led you to start this business. Perhaps one of these reasons was the ambition to live a better life. Yes, it's a great and necessary thing, but here, you might miss something as you're engrossed in work and searching for new sources of income without giving attention to the balance in life between work, social relationships, and even activities that can relieve your fatigue. Then you realize the importance of balance in your life between your professional, social, and emotional aspects. Achieving this balance creates a source of energy and determination to continue working towards your goals.
· Failure Teaches Resilience and Patience:
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison. Perhaps this famous quote by Edison sums up many meanings. He wouldn't have reached the final form of the light bulb without going through thousands of failed attempts and experiments. True ambition for success turns into the strongest motivation, making us persevere and endure the hardships of failure again and again. With each failure, we become stronger, more experienced, and more resilient.
· Failure is Not the End:
Failure may leave long-lasting effects, and the loss may be challenging to compensate for. However, the recovery process begins the moment you realize that failure is not the end of your journey. Your story doesn't end with the loss of your business project or failure of your innovation. Life is full of similar stories. Take Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, for example. He started by establishing Apple in his garage, and it grew to become one of the most significant companies in the world. The company's executives believed he wasn't fit to continue and tried to get rid of him. He was fired from the company but returned later to become the CEO of one of the most famous and powerful brands in the world.
You just need to be certain that another door will open in front of you, and there is still much in your bag to offer and work on. Failure might even become your most significant motivation to start anew and succeed in another endeavor, proving to yourself and others that you can truly do it and that you deserve it.
Only those who work, fail, and make mistakes are the ones who progress.
It's a bitter but necessary experience, as not all roads are paved, and success is not easily achieved without putting in the effort. You just need to believe in yourself, evaluate past mistakes, learn from them, build and add new experiences to your existing ones, and then start fresh.
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