Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success

by John C. Maxwell

I have dedicated my life to adding value to people.

REAL.

Relationships:

Equipping:

Attitude:

Leadership:

We are all failures—at least, all the best of us are. —J. M. BARRIE

Opportunity is in the eye of the beholder.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

In Leadership Magazine, J. Wallace Hamilton states, "The increase of suicides, alcoholics, and even some forms of nervous breakdowns is evidence that many people are training for success when they should be training for failure.

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

the key to overcoming them doesn't lie in changing your circumstances. It's in changing yourself.

You certainly can't control the length of your life—but you can control its width and depth. You cant 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?

Adversity Creates Resilience

Adversity Develops Maturity

Adversity Pushes the Envelope of Accepted Performance

Adversity Provides Greater Opportunities

Adversity Prompts Innovation

Adversity Recaps Unexpected Benefits

But some of the greatest stories of success can be found in the unexpected benefits of mistakes.

Adversity Motivates

Find the Benefit in Every Bad Experience

Get up, get over it, get going.

1. Realize there is one major difference between average people and achieving people. 2. Learn a new definition of failure. 3. Remove the "you" from failure. 4. Take action and reduce your fear. 5. Change your response to failure by accepting responsibility. 6. Don't let the failure from outside get inside you. 7. Say good-bye to yesterday. 8. Change yourself, and your world changes. 9. Get over yourself and start giving yourself. 10. Find the benefit in every bad experience. 11. If at first you do succeed, try something harder. 12. Learn from a bad experience and make it a good experience. 13. Work on the weakness that weakens you. 14. Understand there's not much difference between failure and success. 15. Get up, get over it, get going.