Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success

by John C. Maxwell

I know of only one factor that separates those who consistently shine from those who don’t: The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

If your perception of and response to failure were changed, what would you attempt to achieve?

One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and label them as failures. Instead, they need to keep the bigger picture in mind.

You are the only person who can really label what you do a failure.

“The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does.”

“when we give ourselves permission to fail, we at the same time give ourselves permission to excel.”

“Great minds have purposes; others have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.”

The terrible truth is that all roads to achievement lead through the land of failure. It has stood firmly between every human being who had a dream and the realization of that dream.

Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. If we learn to embrace that new definition of failure, then we are free to start moving ahead—and failing forward.

Thomas Edison believed, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Tell yourself, “I’m not a failure. I failed at doing something.” There’s a big difference.

Wolfgang Mozart, one of the geniuses of musical composition, was told by Emperor Ferdinand that his opera The Marriage of Figaro was “far too noisy” and contained “far too many notes.” Artist Vincent van Gogh, whose paintings now set records for the sums they bring at auction, sold only one painting in his lifetime. Thomas Edison, the most prolific inventor in history, was considered unteachable as a youngster. And Albert Einstein, the greatest thinker of our time, was told by a Munich schoolmaster that he would “never amount to much.”

In the last twenty years, as educators in the United States have watched students’ test scores plummet and their desire to learn decline, they have tried to find ways to reverse those trends. One popular theory states that the best way to improve children’s ability is to puff up their self-esteem. When educators observed that high achievers possessed confidence, they theorized that if they simply built self-esteem, competence would follow. But that approach has backfired on them. Researchers have found that simply building children’s egos breeds many negative traits: indifference to excellence, inability to overcome adversity, and aggressiveness toward people who criticize them.2 Now, I place high value on praising people, especially children. In fact, I believe that people live up to your level of expectations. But I also believe that you have to base your praise on truth.

When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic. It’s not personal. If you want to succeed, don’t let any single incident color your view of yourself.

The greater the feat you desire to achieve, the greater the mental preparation required for overcoming obstacles and persevering over the long haul.

Don’t wait until you feel positive to move forward. Act your way into feeling good.

“A moment of conscious triumph makes one feel that after this nothing will really matter; a moment of realized disaster makes one feel that this is the end of everything. But neither feeling is realistic, for neither event is really what it is felt to be.”

The first important step in weathering failure is learning not to personalize it—making sure you know that your failure does not make you a failure.

“The worst danger we face is the danger of being paralyzed by doubts and fears. This danger is brought on by those who abandon faith and sneer at hope. It is brought on by those who spread cynicism and distrust and try to blind us to the great chance to do good for all mankind.” People whose fear paralyzes them give up any hope of moving forward.

You can’t avoid fear. No magic potion will take it away. And you can’t wait for motivation to get you going. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway.

Motivation is like love and happiness. It’s a by-product. When you’re actively engaged in doing something, it sneaks up and zaps you when you least expect it. As Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner says, “You’re more likely to act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into action.” So act! Whatever it is you know you should do, do it.

An African parable captures the idea very well: Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: When the sun comes up you had better be running.

Remember, it’s almost impossible to feel your way into acting. You must act your way into feeling. The only way to get over the fear is to take action.

“Autobiography in Five Short Chapters.” Better than almost anything else, it describes the process of exiting the failure freeway: Chapter 1. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out. Chapter 2. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place, but it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out. Chapter 3. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately. Chapter 4. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. Chapter 5. I walk down another street.

The only way to exit the failure freeway and see the new territory of achievement is to take full responsibility for yourself and your mistakes.

“Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves—to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.”

Life is not simply holding a good hand. Life is playing a poor hand well. —DANISH SAYING

At no time in life are people more prone to allow failure to overcome them and to give up than when external circumstances cause extreme hardship or grief. But ultimately no matter whether the difficulty is self-created or comes from somewhere outside them, failure is created within them. It is always an inside job.

It’s not what happens to me; it’s what happens in me. It’s not the size of the problem, but how I handle the problem. When I fall, keep getting up.

Many people desire to control the circumstances of their lives, but the truth is that we cannot determine what will come our way. We can’t control the hands we’re dealt, only how we play the cards.

Jan Christiaan Smuts declared, “A man is not defeated by his opponents but by himself.” That’s true. No matter how daunting the circumstances of your life may be, the greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside. How do you fight that battle? You start by cultivating the right attitude.

University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Martin Seligman, who has studied employees in thirty different industries, observes, “The people who bounce back are optimists.”2 Let’s face it. Not everyone is naturally optimistic. Some people are born seeing the glass half empty rather than half full. But no matter what your natural bent is, you can become a more optimistic person. How do you cultivate optimism? By learning the secret of contentment. If you can learn that, then no matter what happens to you, you can weather the storm and build on the good you find in any situation. Contentment. That’s not a popular concept these days. One reason is that our culture actually discourages the idea of contentment. People are continually bombarded with the message, “What you have isn’t enough. You need more—a bigger house, a better car, a larger salary, whiter teeth, sweeter breath, nicer clothes . . .” The list is endless. But the truth is that possessing healthy contentment is essential to being able to withstand failure.

Being content doesn’t mean being satisfied with a bad situation. It simply means having a good attitude as you work your way out of it.

Some people get into trouble because they focus their attention on things beyond their control. Leadership expert Fred Smith says that the key to positive action is to know the difference between a problem and a fact of life. A problem is something that can be solved. A fact of life is something that must be accepted.

You certainly can’t control the length of your life—but you can control its width and depth. You can’t control the contour of your face—but you can control its expression. You can’t control the weather—but you can control the atmosphere of your mind. Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?

“There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.”3

My friend Dwight Bain E-mailed me something called “The City of Regret” that tells the whole story: I had not really planned to take a trip this year, yet I found myself packing anyway. And off I went, dreading it. I was on another guilt trip. I booked my reservation on Wish I Had airlines. I didn’t check my bags—everyone carries their baggage on this airline—and had to drag it for what seemed like miles in the Regret City airport. And I could see that people from all over the world were there with me, limping along under the weight of bags they had packed themselves. I caught a cab to Last Resort Hotel, the driver taking the whole trip backward, looking over his shoulder. And there I found the ballroom where my event would be held: the Annual Pity Party. As I checked in, I saw that all my old colleagues were on the guest list: The Done family—Woulda, Coulda, and Shoulda Both of the Opportunities—Missed and Lost All the Yesterdays—there were too many to count, but all would have sad stories to share Shattered Dreams and Broken Promises would be there, too, along with their friends Don’t Blame Me and Couldn’t Help It. And of course, hours and hours of entertainment would be provided by that renowned storyteller It’s Their Fault.

As I prepared to settle in for a really long night, I realized that one person had the power to send all those people home and break up the party: me. All I had to do was return to the present and welcome the new day! If you have found yourself getting on a flight to the City of Regret, recognize that it’s a trip you book yourself, and you can cancel it at any time—without penalty or fee. But you’re the only one who can.

There are people who’ve had it better than you and done worse. And there are people who’ve had it worse than you and done better. The circumstances really have nothing to do with getting over your personal history. Past hurts can make you bitter or better—the choice is yours.

Psychologist Sheldon Kopp says, “All of the significant battles are waged within the self.” That’s true. People wage the greatest battles against their own flaws and failures.

Not realizing what you want is a problem of knowledge. Not pursuing what you want is a problem of motivation. Not achieving what you want is a problem of persistence.

Some unsuccessful people tell themselves that as soon as they achieve considerable success or discover some unseen talent, they will turn their attention to making a difference in the lives of others. But I have news for them. Many people who struggle with chronic failure do so because they think of no one but themselves. They worry about what other people think of them. They scramble to make sure no one gets the better of them. They continually focus on protecting their turf.

First, you need to think about others rather than yourself. A major cause of negative thinking and poor mental health is self-absorption. Selfishness ultimately hurts not only the people around a self-focused person, but also the selfish person himself. It inclines the person toward failure because it keeps him in a negative mental rut.

When people think about you, do they say to themselves, “My life is better because of that person,” or “My life is worse”? Their response probably answers the question of whether you are adding value to them.

Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living.

If you can step back from the negative circumstances facing you, you will be able to discover their positive benefits. That is almost always true; you simply have to be willing to look for them—and not take the adversity you are experiencing too personally.

Risk must be evaluated not by the fear it generates in you or the probability of your success, but by the value of the goal.

The reality is that everything in life is risky. If you want to avoid all risk, then don’t do any of the following: Don’t ride in an automobile—they cause 20 percent of all fatal accidents. Don’t travel by air, rail, or water—16 percent of all accidents result from these activities. Don’t walk in the street—15 percent of all accidents occur there. Don’t stay at home—17 percent of all accidents happen there.6

Your attitude toward failure determines your altitude after failure. Some people never understand that.

Teachability is an attitude, a mind-set that says, “No matter how much I know (or think I know), I can learn from this situation.” That kind of thinking can help you turn adversity into advantage.