Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success

by John C. Maxwell

No matter how many opportunities you’ve missed or mistakes you’ve made, don’t ever make excuses. Bite the bullet, take complete responsibility for yourself, and keep trying.

Nothing helps a person remain tenacious like a good incentive.

Walter Elliot said, “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races, one after another.” If you give yourself worthwhile incentives to win the short races, attaining a long-term goal seems less formidable.

As you develop incentives for yourself, keep these things in mind: • Reward yourself only after you reach the goal. • Divide the process into stages to multiply the rewards. • Include others—that increas...

Napoleon Hill noted, “Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” To develop persistence over the long haul, you have to cultivate inward determination on a continual basis.

When asked about his philosophy, he said, “I’ve followed the classic homespun principles. Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might. Does it sound corny? Honestly, that’s all there is to it. There is no magic formula.”

Experience is not what happens to you. Experience is what you do with what happens to you. —ALDOUS HUXLEY

Maybe you have developed the persistence and resilience to keep getting up when you get knocked down, but you’re getting weary of dragging yourself back onto your feet again and again without making any progress. You may be physically and emotionally exhausted. If so, you need to do more than just get back up. What you need is a plan that will help you determine what to do after you’ve gotten back up. Try using these steps based on the word FORWARD:

Finalize Your Goal

The goal shapes the plan. The plan shapes the action. The action achieves the results. The results bring success.

Order Your Plans

By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail. —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Risk Failing by Taking Action

Planning alone won’t bring success. The other half of the battle is taking action. Conrad Hilton said, “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving.”

Moving forward on a plan and actually doing it always involves risk. And that’s good because nothing of value is achieved without risk. You have to put you...

Highly successful leaders ignore conventional wisdom and take chances. Their stories inevitably include a defining moment or key decision when they took a significant risk and thereby experienced a breakthrough. —LARRY OSBORNE

Welcome Mistakes

By now, you realize that mistakes are not to be avoided but embraced. They are signals that you’re moving into new territory, breaking new ground, making progress.

Advance Based on Your Character

Every time you face mistakes and attempt to move forward in spite of them is a test of character. There always comes a time when giving up is easier than standing up, when giving in looks more attractive than digging in. And in those moments, character may be the only thing you have to draw on to keep you going.

Reevaluate Your Progress Continually

By fighting through the difficult times and overcoming mistakes, you have the opportunity to learn and adjust. William Knudson joked, “Experience is knowing a lot of things you shouldn’t do.”

People don’t like to examine their mistakes, yet that’s what ...

Develop New Strategies to Succeed

Once you develop a plan and put it into action, you’re not finished. In fact, if you want to succeed, you’re never finished. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point

Failures are milestones on the success journey. Each time you plan, risk, fail, reevaluate, and adjust, you have another opportunity to begin again, only better than the last time.

Undoubtedly some great task lies ahead of you. Maybe you suspect that accomplishing it is the key to your purpose, but you’ve been afraid to tackle it. Perhaps you’re worried that you will not be able to overcome the failure that could result from attempting it. Plan to do it. Don’t jump into it frivolously. (If you’ve tried and failed at it once already, then you probably wouldn’t be frivolous.) Get back up on your feet,

Finalize your goal. Order your plans. Risk failing by taking action. Welcome mistakes. Advance based on your character. Reevaluate your progress continually. Develop new strategies to succeed.

Failure is the hallmark of success. It can be the starting point of a new venture, such as when a baby learns to walk; it has to fall down a lot to learn the new skill. Failure is also the mark of a success you’ve worked for. When a pole-vaulter finally misses in competition, it shows how far he’s come. That failure becomes the starting point for his next effort, proving that failure is not final! —DAVE ANDERSON

To succeed, you have to be open to problems. You have to be open to failure. And as you go up the ladder, you gain the right to get more problems. —DAVE ANDERSON

If you really want to achieve your dreams—I mean really achieve them, not just daydream or talk about them—you’ve got to get out there and fail. Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward. Turn your mistakes into stepping-stones for success.