The Business of Business {FAILURE}

It’s been said “Failure is not an option” but whoever said that forgot to mention that although it may not be an option, it is a reality! When I think of options I think of buying a car & all the options that you can get… leather seats, moon roof, built in bluetooth, etc… But when it comes to failure, it isn’t an option, it’s just something that happens! In every success story, there is always a story of the person overcoming hardship & failure. Very rarely does someone get it on the first try… electricity, the telephone, the internet, the iPhone… all products of failure! But the key in each of these fails, is the perseverance to continue on.

I have struggled throughout my own life with the fear of failure. I used to just not do things because I was too afraid of failing at it, or even worse, I would start something & quit it on my own, so that I wouldn’t have to face up to failure! But in the last few years I finally came to my senses… instead of creating self-fulfilling prophecies of failure, I decided to just DO! Now I’m not saying that I don’t get that fear, but I now choose to walk through it rather than run from it. This has been a long process, and I’m still not to the point where I will just jump into things (I’m not nearly as spontaneous as I would like), but I have found that with good planning & calculated risk I am able to overcome my fears. I’m pretty sure that I will always be the kind of person who looks at a situation & sees the “worst case scenario” first, but I have now trained myself to accept the worst case & think of ways to avoid it! The other way that I have begun to deal with failure is that if I do in fact fail, that I accept it & keep going… it’s just like my mom always said to me “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” Failure will happen, it’s a fact of life, but if I just keep going, and keep going, and keep going… eventually I’ll get it right (or at least close enough to right)! One last thought on failure, my husband regularly jokes that those who come in 2nd place are the 1st place losers… and although that might be ok to say in sports, in life I would have to disagree with him… if we don’t consider ourselves successful until we are first, then you can pretty much throw the idea of success out the door! Most of us will never be number 1, and even if you do make it to number 1, it’s only a matter of time till someone else comes along & kicks you out of your spot! So how do we measure success over failure? I’m not sure, but for me success is my continual journey to create, improve & grow. Each year I set goals for myself, some goals I will meet, some I won’t… it’s a part of business & having a plan. I have tangible goals, and the types of goals dreams are made of. But am I still successful if I don’t reach those goals? I would say yes… as long as I pursued them & didn’t give up on them… and even if I fail today, I have made plans to succeed tomorrow (or maybe next week some time).

So my lesson to myself, is to accept that I will fail, I will fall, BUT that I need to pick myself up, recalibrate my goals & carry on!


Diana Rush

...and here I am, facing my fear (but only if fear was hiding outside of an abandoned railroad track bridge)