How Failure Teaches You What Success Can’t

Success. This is a word that means different things to different people. However, even the people who are successful today have previously failed, becoming stronger with each setback.

It doesn’t seem fair that we should go through failure, does it? No one likes to fail. Still, you should try imagining a world where failure does not exist. We’d take everything for granted, we likely wouldn’t have any respect for anyone, and we’d become lazy people who believe we are better than everyone else.

Those who don’t know any better will say that to stay at the top, you must go from one success to another. However, only those who have already succeeded will tell you this: failure will teach you more than success ever could. And here is how failure does this.

• Reality Checks

If we never experienced failure, we’d believe nothing can bring us down. We’d feel invincible. Failure, on the other hand, provides us with reality checks. It’s similar to a tsunami or an earthquake that tells us we can’t control everything. These reality checks keep us with both feet on the ground, ready to expect anything.

• The Value of Everything

The moment you lose a loved one is when you realize exactly how much they meant to you. The same thing goes for relationships, money, and everything else that we take for granted; only after we have lost them do we realize their value. A failure can show you the true worth of something.

• Survival

In a way, failure also teaches us how to survive. Think about the first time you tried to learn how to swim. When you were pushed in, did you frantically flail your arms and legs around, not knowing what in the world you were supposed to do? In the end, that experience taught you that you can survive if you stay in shallow water. It took you nearly drowning to find that out, but now you know.

• Learning From Mistakes

Think about the time you learned how to ride a bicycle. Over and over, your father told you not to go too fast, but you did it anyway. Then you crashed your bike, resulting in scrapes, bruises, and cuts. Only after that did you realize for yourself why speeding is a bad idea. Using this firsthand knowledge, you learned to slow down. This applies to every other failure in life.

• New Opportunity

When you are on a certain path, even if things are rather rocky, courage alone will keep you on the straight and narrow, still desperately hoping it will work out. However, once you fail, you realize there’s a silver lining to every cloud. We won’t see the beauty of failure right away, but you’ll understand once you hit that “reset” button and things start afresh so you can explore new possibilities.

• Courage and Strength

When you fail, it takes a lot of strength to get back up on your feet. At the same time, you have nothing more to lose — only a lot to win. Failure gives you the catalyst to stand up and try again, because in all honesty, what else can you do?

The Bottom Line

Success can teach you a lot about what you do well. However, failure is the brutal teacher that actually makes you remember it. Failure doesn’t coddle you as success does — and it gives you firsthand knowledge of what you shouldn’t do if you want to be successful. It gives you courage and the push that you need in order to try again.