Brave-Up on the OLC: Fail First, Succeed Later

Re-read the title. Again and again.

Failing is Natural

A lot of people are scared of failing at something, but failing first is natural to us. In fact, it is uncommon for us to succeed on our first try. Rarely does it happen! As a baby, how many times did we fall before we were able to walk? Tons. As a child, how many times did we fail before we were able to ride the bike? Tons. As a young adult, how many times did you fail before you were able to land that first job? It took me 3 times. Post-secondary? 2 times. As an adult, how many times did you fail before you were able to land your dream job? Probably a lot. These are only some examples in our lives and you can already see where failure comes first for the majority of us.

After failing so many times, we were still able to succeed in the end. How is that possible?

Professor "Failure"

During a job interview, if the employers asks, "what is your main weakness?" you know you're supposed to say something that can easily be twisted positively (and don't say things like Kryptonite!). Think of failure in that context. How can it be put into a positive light? Like a teacher, failure teaches us about mistakes, adversity and experience. We learn from our mistakes, we learn from our failed experiences and unfortunate situations. In turn, these three elements help foster resilience - our ability to recover or rebound from failures. Every time we fail an exam, an interview or a class presentation, we learn from each instance and this builds our resilience. Life has plenty of curve balls for us and failure ultimately aids us in persevering through them.

Without failure in our lives, we would only know of success. How could we possibly appreciate our accomplishments?

Have No Fear!

Fear of failure can become an issue if you are unable to see failure as a learning opportunity. Remember:

• failure can be a positive thing
• we have been failing ever since we were born

Fear of failure or low resilience prevents you from trying new and wonderful things that could possibly make your life better! Once you are able to understand the benefits of failing, the fear will eventually subside.

I will tell you right now: You will fail more times than you will succeed. Guess what? We should all be familiar with the floor by now anyways. One thing for certain, we will always succeed in the end even if we have to fall on the floor several times first.

ABOUT AUTHOR ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Jason is a Criminology major who is hooked onto policing as a career. But that isn't all, he is also hooked on helping others become the best and strongest versions of themselves. Through his blog, Brave-Up, he looks to educate, motivate, inspire and raise questions about counter-productive social norms within our society. "Man up" is now an archaic term - because Brave-Up is NOW. You can find Jason on Twitter at @BraveUp_jy.

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