Why Failure is Good and Necessary to Achieve Success in Life

Whether you like it or not, failure is an important part of life. It is necessary for personal growth and success in life.

No one likes to fail but it happens to everybody. Failure is inevitable. Unless you’re not taking any action at all, as long as you make progress, you will experience failure.

But the key is not whether you’re going to fail, because you will. The key is how you deal with failure. What you choose to do when you fail is the deciding factor for your future success.

And in this article, we will talk about why failure is good. That’s right, most people hate to fail, but it is good to fail. Here’s why…

1. Failure Gives You a Reality Check

Nobody likes to fail, but it gives you a wake-up call and serves as a reality check. For example, if you want to build an internet business but you failed at it, it is telling you that what you’re doing is not working.

Failure acts as a signal telling you that what you’re doing isn’t getting you the results you want. Hence, you either need to change your strategy or if you refuse to change, you will be getting the same old results.

Just like when something isn’t working in your life, you need to make a change. And what if you don’t change? Guess what, you will continue to fail.

Read: How Successful People Overcome Failures and Bounce Back

Think about how a baby learns to walk. She will never succeed in her first attempt. A baby will grab and hold on to something to help her get up. And once she stands up, she will most definitely fall back because she isn’t used to standing, let alone walking.

And you know what? The baby will keep trying because she knew she could do it. As a result, she will learn from every step she took. She is learning from her failure. She may not succeed at first, but the more she tried, the more stable she will become. Eventually, she will succeed and walk.

Hence, you may not like to fail, nobody does, but failure is a good experience to help you grow and become someone better.

2. Failure is Necessary for Success

Failure is necessary and it can be a powerful transformation to help you reach your potential and achieve greater success in life.

Failure and defeat are life’s greatest teachers, but most people don’t want to experience them due to internal insecurities and fear.

Instead, they choose to coast through life playing it safe by doing the same things day in and day out, making the same safe choices over and over again.

Read: 3 Fundamental Principles How to Turn Failure Into Success

By never attempting anything new, they are avoiding the possibility of failing but they are also avoiding or rather missing out on succeeding.

Just like this great saying from J. K. Rowling:

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

Thus, take more risks. Dare to venture out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to do difficult things.

3. Failure Develops Personal Growth

When we fail, we gain valuable experiences and insights. Every time we fail, we learn something new about ourselves, which will help us grow and improve.

Let me ask you a question – have you ever wondered why successful people are successful?

Well, the answer is this – successful people are successful because they make good decisions that get them the results they want.

But, how do they manage to make good decisions most of the time? Because they have the experience, and they know what works and what doesn’t.

And how do they gain experience? Here’s the answer – through learning from mistakes and failures.

Read: 10 Great Ways How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure

You see, many people believe that failure is the opposite of success. This is why people hate making mistakes and failures.

But the truth is that failure is NOT the opposite of success. Failure is on the same side as success. Failure allows you to grow, learn, improve, and get better. Failure is the KEY to success.

4. Failure Helps You Realign Your Direction

You already know that failure gives you a reality check, it is telling you that something isn’t working. And this means failure also helps you realign your direction in life.

No matter what you want to achieve in life, be it at home or at work, understanding why you fail gives you a huge advantage to make progress on your goals.

Read: Ultimate Goal Setting Guide: How to Set Goals and Achieve Them

When you set a goal and take action, but you are not getting the result you want, it doesn’t that you have failed. It simply means what you’re doing isn’t working and you need to make adjustments to your strategy.

Just like building a business. If what you do isn’t getting you the result, you need to do a review of your strategy. Find out if what you do are working. If it is not, then change it. Stop doing the same thing over and over again but expect to get a different result.

5. Success is Not Going to Happen Right Away

You have to understand that success isn’t going to happen with ‘one-shot’. You cannot succeed overnight, but you can succeed over time.

Unfortunately, most people fail to understand this principle and thought that success is about making one decision or making just one attempt.

Whenever they fail, they buy into the belief that what they want isn’t possible for them. And then they choose to give up and quit on their goals and dreams.

Never let that happen to you. Understand success is not something that will happen immediately. And this is why learning from failure is going to be important.

Read: 10 Ultimate Keys to Success in Life and How to Live Better

Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC was rejected 1,009 times before his fried chicken recipe was accepted by someone.

Stephen King, the mega novelist had his first book, Carrie, rejected 30 times. Publishers told him they are interested in science fiction that touches on negative utopias because they don’t sell. King dumped his book in the trash bin, but his wife picked it up, read it, and asked him to resubmit, which gave King his first book deal.

Do you know that Michael Jordan was rejected by his high school basketball team? But he didn’t give up. He continued to train and work hard to pursue his dreams. And these were his words:

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Conclusion

Failure isn’t the end of the world. It is part and parcel of a learning process that affords you great knowledge and experience.

You must learn to believe in yourself and have faith in your abilities. Be adamant and strive for your goals, visualize the end result and then go for it.

If you fail, you fail and you go on. Push forward. Learn from the lessons and recognize the importance of them.

Understand the impediments, modify your behavior, try again and again until you realize your own potential. Only then success will come to you.

So, do you think failure is good?

It is good if you learn from it and make good use of it. Failure is important because it can transform you and make you someone worthy of success.

However, failure is going to be bad if you don’t learn from it, evolve, or gain new insights from it. When you choose to do nothing with your failure, you will continue to fail.