The Success in Failure

Over the past few years, this has been one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp. I mean, aren’t failure and success opposites? How could one be found in the other? After some hard lessons and a lot of prayer, I was finally able to shift my mindset. 

In its simplest form, success means achieving a goal. In turn, failure then means an attempt that did not result in achieving a goal. Put this into a scenario and it seems pretty clear what is and isn’t success, right? But when you put your situation under a microscope, it is so much more than just achieving the goal. 

Allow me to contextualize this:

As a coach, I try to teach my athletes the mentality of “taking the small wins”: a mindset my own coaches tried to teach me over the years. Endless hours are poured into learning, practicing, and perfecting cheers, dances, stunts, and routines just to have two minutes and thirty seconds to showcase it all on the mat. The pressure to perform a perfect routine can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned athlete. 

Following a competition, I remind my athletes to look for the small wins - especially in moments when we experience a tough loss. We sit as a team and reflect on the experience. What happened the first time I did this with a new team? They only focused on all of the mistakes - all their “fails”. But each time, I would ask them to look for a positive, no matter how small. Eventually they began to look for the small wins on their own. During our reflection conversations, they began pointing out the small wins without being prompted to. Eventually, these athletes began to value their small wins, and they recognized that a first place trophy is not what defines success. 

When we solely look at our failures as, well, a failure, we find little growth. Success is hard to achieve on the first try. In fact, always expecting a perfect first try can be hurtful to yourself. Sure, you made a mistake. However, recognizing that mistake allows you to work towards fixing it. Each time you “fail”, you are one step closer to succeeding. As we work to put ourselves in the mindset of looking for the small wins, you learn to appreciate the losses. 

In our twenties, we aren’t going to experience success all the time. In fact, we are more likely to stare failure in the face quite a few times. This is a learning period and a time for growth. Receiving constructive criticism isn’t a failure, it’s advice to help you succeed. Receiving interview feedback from a job you didn’t land isn’t to make you feel bad, it’s to help you grow so you can land the next job. Making mistakes is a part of life, and only viewing them as failures leaves us with missed opportunities. 

Now, am I trying to shove toxic positivity in your lap? No, absolutely not. Failures are failures, and some of them are going to suck. Treat yourself with kindness. Allow yourself to feel your feelings, but also encourage yourself to look for areas of growth, the small wins, and lessons to take away. 

We also can’t fear failure. Trial and error is the only way to grow and learn in many situations. Do you think the person who invented chocolate chip cookies got it absolutely perfect on their first try? Do you think Olympic gymnasts just started doing perfect backflips with no failures? Of course they didn’t! They failed probably again and again, learning lessons each time. Does that mean the entire process was a failure? Again, of course not! Look for the small successes: that baker made probably the most iconic cookie, it just needed some adjustments. Those athletes took the first steps towards becoming Olympians. 

Allow these experiences to help you grow, not tear you down. No one said this was an easy shift, and it will take time to learn. However, one day, you’ll be grateful that twenty-something you decided to adjust your mindset to look for the success in failure.