Introduction
Failure has become a taboo subject. It is rare to find someone who openly talks about being unable to achieve something. Indeed, the only time I see people talk about failure is when they can turn it into a success story. But when you think about it, I am a failure. We all are. Statistically, more people fail, so surely, we should be seeing fewer posts about people succeeding and more posts about people failing. To me this is a huge problem because every successful person knows that failure is a part of success. So, if we want to see more people winning, we need to be brave enough to talk about the times we have fallen short of our goals.
Therefore, as someone who believes that you need to be the change you want to see, I will lead the way by sharing one of my most significant failures:
One of my greatest failures
If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that I have a passion for politics. But what most of you don’t know, is that in my first attempt to get into politics, I failed. During my time at Sixth Form, it was announced that their would-be a school-wide election for the UK’s Youth parliament. For those of you who are unaware Youth Parliament is basically Parliament for those under 18. Long story short, I didn’t just lose I finished last. I remember sitting there as the results were being announced; my body filled with so much rage. The way I saw it was if people from my own school didn’t respect me enough to vote for me, how could others?
Losing that election will always be something I consider a failure because, as a natural communicator, I should have won. After reflecting, I realised that I lost that election not because I lacked the skills required to win, but because I was too timid to clash with the other candidates.
In other words, I allowed an opportunity to slip away because I wanted to maintain the friendships I had with my opponents. Stupid I know, but losing gave me the taste of reality I needed. It taught me that if you want something in life, you have to have a sense of ruthlessness. Business is business, and the realities of life mean that winners cannot afford to hold back because of their relationships with competitors.
Ultimately a person’s life is measured by what they have achieved, and not by the amount of people they avoid pissing off. Think about it, in the 60s Martin Luther King, a man who advocated for non-violence, had a 28% approval rating with white Americans. Suppose someone like Martin Luther King allowed his negative approval ratings to impact his decisions. How much more racist would the world be?
Outlook
If there’s one thing I want you to learn from my experience is that you cannot allow the opinion of friends, family or strangers to sway you from your goals. This doesn’t mean that you ignore or discard advice and constructive critics. It means that someone’s opinion should never be the reason why you fail to try.
My hope is that from sharing this experience, many of you have learnt something and will be motivated to start sharing your own failures to inspired others.