Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success

by John C. Maxwell

To have an opportunity to reach your potential, you must know who you are and face your flaws.

Bishop Fulton Sheen offered this insight, “Most of us do not like to look inside ourselves for the same reason we don’t like to open a letter that has bad news.” Many people see all the bad and deny the good, or they see all the good and deny the bad. To reach your potential, you must see both.

I stated that you must take responsibility for your actions to fail forward. But you must also take responsibility for who you are as a person. That means owning up to what you cannot do (based on skill), should not do (based on talent), and ought not do (based on character). That’s not always easy to do.

No one ever achieved his dreams working outside his areas of gifting. To excel, do what you do well.

you will improve only if you enthusiastically develop your God-given abilities. You can reach your potential tomorrow if you dedicate yourself to growth today. Remember, to change your world, you must first change yourself.

As you read this, if you are not happy with your current job, family situation, or life, look first at what you can change in yourself before trying to alter your circumstances.

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.

If you know who you are, make the changes you must in order to learn and grow, and then give everything you’ve got to your dreams, you can achieve anything your heart desires.

Sam Peeples Jr. says, “The circumstances of life, the events of life, and the people around me in life do not make me the way I am, but reveal the way I am.”

Don’t get stuck inside your own ego, because it will become a prison in no time flat. —BARBARA WARD

People who desire to fail forward must turn their attention away from themselves and toward helping others.

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.

Zig Ziglar says, “You can get everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want.”

To add value to others, you need to start putting others ahead of yourself in your mind and heart. If you can do it there, you will be able to put them first in your actions.

Listen to people. Ask them what matters to them. And observe them. If you can discover how people spend their time and money, you’ll know what they value. And when you know people’s values, you can add value to them.

The final step requires concrete action. Once you know what matters to people, do your best to meet their needs with excellence and generosity. Offer your best with no thought toward what you might receive in return.

what matters is that you give all you can to the people who are important to you. And you can do that only if you learn to get over yourself. Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living.

A failure is a man who blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience. —ELBERT HUBBARD

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.1

It doesn’t matter whether your objectives are in the area of art, business, ministry, sports, or relationships. The only way you can get ahead is to fail early, fail often, and fail forward.

We overestimate the event and underestimate the process. Every fulfilled dream occurred because of dedication to a process.

People naturally tend toward inertia. That’s why self-improvement is such a struggle. But that’s also why adversity lies at the heart of every success. The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level.

To achieve your dreams, you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you’re not failing, you’re probably not really moving forward.

Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers asserts, “The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.” Adversity and the failure that often results from it should be expected in the process of succeeding, and they should be viewed as absolutely critical parts of it.

Nothing in life breeds resilience like adversity and failure.

Adversity can make you better if you don’t let it make you bitter. Why? Because it promotes wisdom and maturity.

William Saroyan spoke to this issue: “Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.”

Once you know that the net below will catch you, you stop worrying about falling. You actually learn to fall successfully! What that means is, you can concentrate on catching the trapeze swinging toward you, and not on falling, because repeated falls in the past have convinced you that the net is strong and reliable when you do fall . . . The result of falling and being caught by the net is a mysterious confidence and daring on the trapeze. You fall less. Each fall makes you able to risk more.

Until a person learns from experience that he can live through adversity, he is reluctant to buck mindless tradition, push the envelope of organizational performance, or challenge himself to press his physical limits. Failure prompts a person to rethink the status quo.

I believe that eliminating problems limits our potential. Just about every successful entrepreneur I’ve met has numerous stories of adversity and setbacks that opened doors to greater opportunity.

University of Houston professor Jack Matson recognized that fact and developed a course that his students came to call “Failure 101.” In it, Matson assigns students to build mock-ups of products that no one would ever buy. His goal is to get students to equate failure with innovation instead of defeat. That way they will free themselves to try new things. “They learn to reload and get ready to shoot again,” says Matson. If you want to succeed, you have to learn to make adjustments to the way you do things and try again. Adversity helps to develop that ability.

In science, mistakes always precede the truth. —HORACE WALPOLE

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.

Always measure an obstacle next to the size of the dream you’re pursuing. It’s all in how you look at it.

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” He found the positive benefits in his negative experiences. And if he can do it, so can we.

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. —HENRY C. LINK

Pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh emphasized that point: “What kind of man would live where there is no daring? I don’t believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished if we don’t take any chances at all.”

How do you judge whether some activity is worth the risk? Do you base it on your fear? No, you should do some things that scare you. Should you base it on the probability of success? No, I don’t think that’s the answer either. 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.

Everything in life brings risk. It’s true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don’t try anything new.

G. K. Chesterton wrote, “I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.” The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure—and actually fail—the greater your chances of success.

I would rather try something great and fail than try nothing great and succeed.

Deep down, nobody wants to look bad. And if you take a risk and fall flat on your face, you might embarrass yourself. So what? Get over it. The only way to become better is to take steps forward—even shaky ones that cause you to fall down.

Little progress is better than no progress at all. Success comes in taking many small steps. If you stumble in a small step, it rarely matters. Don’t gift wrap the garbage. Let little failures go.

Consider this Latin proverb: “If there is no wind, row.” As you prepare to take a risk, don’t expect to get a favorable wind. Begin with the mind-set that you have to row; then if you receive help, it will be a pleasant surprise.

“Life isn’t fair. It isn’t going to be fair. Stop sniveling and whining and go out and make it happen for you.” Wishing that a risk wasn’t yours to take won’t make it any easier. In fact, it might make it harder. Your attitude about it is your choice.

But Jim Stovall advises, “Don’t wait for all the lights to be green before you leave the house.” If you wait for perfect timing, you’ll wait forever. And the more you wait, the more tired you’ll get. William James wisely declared, “There is nothing so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” Don’t use timing as an excuse to procrastinate.

Someone once said, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

Oscar Wilde said, when he was asked the difference between a professional writer and an amateur, the difference is that an amateur writes when he feels like it; a professional writes regardless.

You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve.

First, if you’ve been hitting all the goals you set for yourself, then you need to increase your willingness to take chances. The road to the next level is always uphill, so you can’t coast there. Conversely, if you find yourself in a place where it seems that you don’t achieve many of your goals, you may be playing it too safe. Once again, the answer is a willingness to take greater risks. (It’s ironic that opposite ends of the spectrum come together in the area of risk.)