I had an interesting conversation recently, during which I was asked, “What’s one thing that you would wish for your child?”. (I don’t have one btw)
And my answer was something along the lines of, “I hope they fall flat on their face a couple of times early on.”
In a study by the same happiness expert Mo Gawdat, subjects where asked “If you could go back and undo your biggest failure, but everything that came as a product of it disappeared too, would you?”
99% answered no.
The most pivotal moments of my life are failures... training for 3 years to then get sick and watch my friends achieve my dream (rowing), getting 3 D’s in my first set of A-levels and having to retake (twice eventually), going to Oxford Brooke’s university for a month then dropping out, my IBS journey (not a failure, but a valuable lesson), the list goes on.
Would I change any of these? Hell no.
Failure is valuable, failure is a good thing, and failure is also the quickest way to success!
The fastest way to figure out what you want to do is to figure out what you don’t want to do.
So if you can fail hard, fail fast, learn, pivot, and move on - you will find your feet much quicker than someone who won’t dip their toe in the water.
Failure also builds resilience, meaning how much sh*t you can take.
So next time you find yourself failing, see it as a gym session for your resilience, and an oppurtunity for you to learn and grow.