What is worth failing for is what is worth striving for

4 January 2004

New year, new start. A time to consider new opportunities. It’s been said a million times already, and it’s only day four of 2004.

Most of us though are afraid to try something new or different for fear of failing. One statistic suggests 98 per cent of people will never realise their loftiest ambitions. How alarming. It seems to suggest we are all settling for second best in life. Or less.

So frightened are we of inevitable doom, we won’t take a chance, and peruse our dreams. I could insert lashings of rhetoric here. You only live once. There are no rehearsals in life. Just do it. I’ll spare you the drivel though.

Jugglezine’s* latest article The Pain and (half) Pleasures of Rejection (Wayback Machine link), written by Todd Pitock, suggests that in order to succeed, we need to find a cause or goal worth failing for. Something so fundamental and intrinsic to our beliefs, that failure will not ultimately matter.

It’s almost another way of saying that failure is a signpost found along the road to success. Falling down is all part of the process. And the importance of being focussed and motivated cannot be overstated.

Aside from our own inhibitions, the criticism we receive from those closest to us is the next biggest stumbling block. Sometimes our own doubts are overweighed by the negative perceptions of friends and family. Their disapproval can cut the deepest. It’s often enough to dissuade many people from ever having a go.

But it’s mind over matter. If our dreams and ambitions are worth failing for, they must be worth pursuing. Where would any of us be otherwise? If everyone were too afraid to take a chance and try a new idea? Still living in caves perhaps?

Hmm, how affirmative. I really should listen to myself more often.

*Jugglezine is no longer being published.

Originally published Sunday 4 January 2004.