What will this teach me?
Everything.
Everything you’ll need to know.
I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t put on this planet with all the answers. And, when I look at how my life has gone so far, I can see that almost all of my greatest lessons were taught to me through failure.
I learned how to love deeply by being with people who seemed to lack the capacity whatsoever.
I learned the importance of commitment through giving up (really bad) a handful of times.
I learned how to think for myself and trust my intuition by having others send me down bad paths that only led to a whole lot of pain.
The list really goes on.
But what comes out of all of that is the same message…
Failure teaches you.
I think it’s really important to note that despite having my butt kicked by life and failing very badly at times, I didn’t stay in that place.
I looked at what happened (even if it took me forever) and adjusted my strategy. Then, I went back at it again.
That “I went back at it again” statement also needs to be explained. Why?
Because I went back at it relentlessly until eventually something budged. I sought out the answers to get through by others who have traveled that path successfully. I picked apart the steps I had taken looking for the places that I had gone wrong.
And yes, at times, I didn’t change a damn thing and just went at it with sheer will. Sometimes, that made the difference.
You can’t stay in the mud when you fall. You have to get back up and give it another go.
You always have to remember, you weren’t given all the answers to the test at the beginning.
If you can get on board with that, it becomes much easier to take failure when it comes because that’s part of the process.
But then the next step arrives…
Courting it.
What do I mean by that? I mean, head straight into things that you are going to be a complete beginner at and just know that you’re probably going to suck at it a lot of the time at the beginning.
That’s part of the process. That’s part of learning. The only way to get to a place where you eventually master something is to start at the place where you are a total beginner.
You can’t skip it.
You have to work right through it.
So here I am this evening looking towards the future and the path I want to travel…spending time thinking about all of the places that I could head into and fail…
That excites me.
That moves me.
That’s going to be something that compels me to move forward.
Because I know, that if I bring that same relentless attitude towards all of those failures, that eventually I will make something more of myself.
Growth.
Development.
Change.
All for the better and all for the future.
So court failure.
Become best friends.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project