What’s up friend? I’m gonna keep this one a little short today. Or try to anyway.

I’ve been having some big thoughts about the word failure lately. 

Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

Being the competitive person that I am, I love to win and I hate losing. Some people may call me a poor loser, but I strongly disagree.

I hate losing when I know my team didn’t put in their all. I hate losing knowing that I could of shown up better. I hate losing knowing that I voluntarily gave up before really seeing it all the way through. 

So what does it mean to fail? If/when you do fail, does it automatically make you a failure? I don’t think it does.

I see a failure as someone who quits before seeing the thing all the way through.

Someone who doesn’t put everything into trying to succeed.

Someone who half-asses things.

Someone who doesn’t take any lessons or learns anything from having failed.

In my mind, you failing ≠ you’re a failure.

It’s what you do in the midst of failing and after you’ve failed that contributes to you being (or not being) a failure.

If you’re showing up the best way that you can, exhausting all you can, then you can look back on what the work you gave and know that yes, you did fail… but you yourself are not a failure.

Failure is the best, most efficient way to learn. It’s also the hardest and the most hurtful. Without failure, we wouldn’t grow. 

If you’re failing and not growing, then you have some meditation and soul searching to really dig into why you’re not making changes and pivots to reflect on why you failed (and keep failing). There’s probably a belief that you’re holding onto that’s not true or something from your past that you can’t seem to let go of/move on from.

I’m gonna leave you with some quotes below because why not… and I hope that you go move your body today, meditate, reflect/contemplate, or something/anything that helps you reconnect with your spirit, body and mind.

“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”
– Woody Allen

“How one handles success or failure is determined by their early childhood.”
– Harold Ramis

“In order to achieve anything you must be brave enough to fail. ”

– Kirk Douglas