Roger Harty: Failure

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THERE is no such thing as failure, The only real failure is the failure to try.

Anytime we try something new, then it is almost inevitable and necessary that it is accompanied by a certain amount of failure, otherwise the statement ‘practice makes perfect’ wouldn’t exist.

We see it so often in life, sport, business and health that learning to deal with failure is just as important as dealing with success. In fact, it is often suggested that one can learn more from failure than one can from success.

The key word here is learning, because if there is a good amount of learning in the failure then that learning could not have been achieved or been given the attention had the failure not happened in the first place.

Take sport for example. If a team is beaten in the final of a competition, once the initial pain of defeat (that pain is very necessary) has thawed out, then an honest and positive analysis of the game, accompanied by the necessary changes in approach can only bode well for the future.

It isn’t important what happens to us in Iife, what is of far more importance is how we react.

Any good coach worth his salt would tell you that you will learn far more from defeat than you will learn from victory.

Take for example the Mayo football team who are in the All Ireland Final this afternoon.

They didn’t even qualify for the Connacht Provincial Final but it is obvious that they learned quite a lot from defeat along the way which turned them into the formidable outfit that they are now.

These defeats have made them even more resilient and thus have added to their strength as a team. Like steel in a steelworks, it has tempered them.

In simple terms, the thing about failure is that you have a choice.

You can succumb to it and wallow in it (note a brief period of grief is permitted as we are only human after all !!) or you can (b) use the failure as a psychological tool and a yardstick to drive on to even higher heights.

There is a great short motivational video on YouTube which demonstrates this very well and I would highly recommend you viewing it – It’s called Welcome the Rain 

The truth is any successful businessman, sportsman or lifecoach will tell you that the proper use of failure is a necessary part of succeeding.

Ultimately it’s all about attitude. If success is achieved in this manner then I’m sure you would agree that there is no such thing as failure.

• Next week I am going to write about — How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

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