Failure Can Be Your Friend – If You Take This Step
As a dog returns to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his foolishness.
Proverbs 26:11 (NLT)
If you’ve every failed at anything in life, you’ve likely heard the old adages “Failure is life’s greatest teacher,” or “Every failure is a stepping stone to success.” Don’t get me wrong – these sound like fantastic quotes that lead the one failing to a bright future. But, they are incomplete statements.
What happens when a team is down at halftime? A team with a good coach will make adjustments, causing the opponent to find other ways to create havoc. The best teams will almost always respond to adversity and tighten the gap. They might not always win the game, but by studying the film and changing the game plan or scheme, they put themselves in a far better situation to overcome the deficit.
Failure certainly paves the way for learning opportunities, but not everyone takes advantage of the chances failure affords to grow and improve. We’ve all witnessed others who repeatedly make the same mistakes – whether it’s in a sport, or perhaps in life. Maybe you’ve been there yourself. If you find history repeating itself in a certain area of failure, it’s almost certainly because you haven’t taken the time to truly learn from your mistakes.
Failure alone teaches nothing – it only demonstrates that we’re prone to failure as humans. That can be a sobering reality if you’ve never failed before. But, it’s focused reflection on failure that will open our minds and allow us to learn and grow from it. When we take the time to analyze what went wrong and why it went wrong, we can then change our actions and behaviors and set ourselves up for future victories.
Otherwise, we’ll be just like the dog mentioned in Proverbs 26:11, looking for a choice meal, but ultimately returning to its own vomit.
While failure is painful, it’s not final – unless you allow it to be. Embrace it, reflect on it, and learn from it. And, that’s when you’ll be better for it.
C.A. Phillips has served on staff at NorthStar Church since 2004, and has more than 35 years of baseball experience as a player, coach, and umpire. He and his wife, Amy, have two adult sons and live in Kennesaw with their German Shepherd, Abby.
