Fail to Succeed

 

I wonder what you would say, if I asked you for your definition of “Failure”

The Oxford Online Dictionary defines FAILURE as…

·      Lack of success…an economic policy that is doomed to failure.

·      An unsuccessful person or thing…The lack of water resulted in crop failures.

·      The neglect or omission of expected or required action… failure to comply with the rules.

·      A lack or deficiency of a desirable quality…a failure of imagination.

·      The action or state of not functioning…heart failure, engine failure.

·      A sudden cessation of power…a sudden power failure.

This word Failure and its myriad of definitions is responsible for many of us living unfulfilled, unhappy lives. Chained to inappropriate jobs, relationships and circumstances based on the belief that if we ever did anything other than what we are presently doing we will in fact have failed in our original plans.

Are we failures if we choose a career path, then once we achieve it, leave the job to go in a completely different direction? Have we failed if we set out to travel the world then stop at the first country, what if we turn around and come straight home? Failure?

 

 

The universe is full of doctors who would rather be artists, soldiers who would rather be poets and accountants who would rather be surf life savers. I myself have aspired to become a veterinarian, massage therapist, artist, singer, counsellor, truck driver and midwife. I have not achieved all these things and I have judged myself harshly for not following through, for not completing some challenges or mounting some obstacles. I have felt like a failure. I have felt the lack of success.

Someone recently asked me about my journey into midwifery. How was I going with it? Did I have my degree?  Reluctantly I replied “Umm… no, I bought a house instead.” I then had to explain how I had since sold that house, quit my job and was focussing on a simpler lifestyle.

And then it hit me. I was not a failure…I had simply changed my mind. I had been led in a different direction. I had followed my heart’s desire…again and was now happily living a new and different reality. Hallelujah!!!

 

All the time spent beating myself up for this so-called ‘failure’ when there was no such thing at all. I had changed my mind. I was not less than. I was not stupid. I was not careless or uncommitted. I had embraced changed.

 

Imagine this freedom. What would you do, if you knew you simply could not fail? You could try things. Everything! You could start a new career, go to university, take up singing lessons, dye your hair or NOT dye your hair. You could give up working at a job you told yourself at seventeen was your life time career choice. You could leave an unhappy relationship, ask someone on a date…

You could embrace change.

Just because you change your mind, you have not failed. This is not FAILURE.

This is choice. Free will. This is movement, energy, growth. This ultimately, is life.

So, go ahead, fail and make failure your biggest success yet.