FAIL is an abbreviation for “First Attempt In Learning”. What kind of feeling comes to our mind when we hear the word Fail? Definitely not a happy feeling, right? Suddenly it feels like a cloud of sorrow has crowded you from all sides and there will never be any escape from it. “A student failed in his Physics exams”, “People who appeared for the driving test today failed to follow the proper instructions” and a ton of statements of the same kind are posted on the internet and heard on a daily basis in the surroundings we live in. The way these statements are being said makes the listener almost believe that they are as bad as to quit but do the speakers, even for a single time, wonder what the person who is being told the same thing by almost everyone might be feeling?
What does failing mean? Is there any well-defined full form for that? Or do they just differ from person to person? Well, a number of full forms of FAIL can be found on the internet speaking for so many different mindsets. One that sounds like the most authentic is “First Attempt in Learning” and it makes so much sense because without going wrong you are never prepared for the extremes. When scientists fail while conducting an experiment, it makes a new discovery and with that discovery, they write histories and make their names immortal. One of many other beautiful definitions of Fail is “Future Always Involves Learning”. There is no future without learning. Nobody wants to remain stuck in something for the rest of their lives thinking about what they could have done differently to end up somewhere else and not here.
Failure is a necessary part of our life when we are aiming for an incredibly successful life in the future. It prepares us for the worst outcomes and setbacks life could put us in, on the pathway to success. Every failure gives us a new piece of knowledge. When a child touches some hot object by mistake and gets his/her hand burned, it is a piece of knowledge for him/her what not to do the next time a hot object is near. Not studying for exams and failing is a lesson for the student to never go unprepared for an exam. There is always a scope for improvement, but we fail to realise it until we get hit by a major setback. The concept of failure might look scary and almost impossible to escape from but the achievements it provides in the later stages of life make it all worth it. It gives us a chance to learn new skills and improve the old ones which, ultimately, results in a boost of confidence in ourselves. So, yes, failure is crucial for success.
How people take a failure differs from person to person. To someone, it might look like a new scope of learning whereas to someone else, a dead end. It is completely not them who is responsible for their attitude towards failure, surroundings play a huge role in it. How to perceive something sometimes comes from what other people are thinking about it. “I could not clear even a driving test, my friends must be laughing at me right now”. If your friends are laughing at your failure, maybe they are not your friends. There is nothing life-threatening wrong with failing if you choose to take a lesson from it.
The first stage of taking a failure is to be nice to yourself and accept what went wrong. You can improve something in yourself if you think you are perfect. Remind yourself that at least you tried and even if it did not work out, it is still an experience. Mourn but think about how to improve and work on it now.
Failure teaches us that life is too short to just sit and think about what went wrong. It provides a chance to improve and get better.
Failures are important because they teach us more than success does. Apart from finding out what went wrong during the work, it gives us a chance to learn about ourselves too.
It gets close to impossible to move forward in life without accepting failures. It depends from person to person how difficult it feels, but gradually it feels better to look behind and see how far you have made.
When you fail and learn from your mistakes, you get better in many ways. You start to understand things more deeply, the creativity comes in and the fear of getting failed slowly vanishes away.