Believe in yourself – Believe you can fail
Believe in yourself, often when we hear these words we interpret it as having faith in oneself and your ability to achieve your goals and aspirations. It means you can overcome self-doubt, step out of your comfort zone and get things done. Without this inward faith you will struggle to rise about above limitations and accomplish anything meaningful in life. That being said I would like to go further and say believing in oneself also means believing that when you try something new or step into an unknown territory believe that you can fail. Yes you read that right.
Allow me to explain before you write me off as an extreme pessimist or prophet of doom. I want to draw your attention the word CAN, in this context it means there is a possibility that you may fail not that you WILL certainly fail. Let’s be real as human beings failure is part of our growth and development process. Let’s take an example of babies learning to walk, they don’t suddenly get up from the crawling position and start walking upright. Instead, it takes several failed attempts and falls before they can fully master the art of walking and no matter how many times they tumble still they rise and try again. In other words it’s not failure that is the problem but your attitude towards it.
Once upon a time I was one of those people who used to say failure is not part of my vocabulary in other words I did not want to believe that I could fail such that when it did happen I had no clue how to handle it. I would get so consumed with why it happened and drown in an endless pool of disappointment for days until eventually I would give up and not try again. All this was because I was did not have an action plan on how to navigate failure and keep going.
However, now I have since changed my approach and learnt to acknowledge failure plus the role it plays in the process of growth. Everyone will experience failure at sone point or another; even the most successful people in the world have testimonies of when they failed. What’s important is to recognize it as a possibility and plan how you will deal with it so that you are not taken by surprise. Lastly remember: Failure is an EVENT not a PERSON so never allow it to define you. You can fail but that does not make you a failure!
