If At First You Don’t Succeed…

The one thing human nature has shown time and again is that persistence is key in everything and as the saying goes ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’ As a species, humanity has survived purely by persisting. We have evolved, both physically and technologically, through persistence and willpower. We have learned that to fail means that you have tried one way of achieving your goal and, even though this attempt didn’t go according to plan, you got close. The important thing when it comes to failure is to learn from the experience gained, utilise that newly acquired experience and then try again. As I’m sure everyone has been told: ‘persistence is key.’

“From success, you learn absolutely nothing. From failure and setbacks, conclusions can be drawn. That goes for your private life as well as your career.” – Niki Lauda

These are wise words from a hugely successful man whose major setbacks taught him so much. Lauda’s setbacks almost defined his entire life but, rather than allow setbacks to prevent him from carrying on, Lauda continued. Persisted. Life may have changed for him but that did not mean that Lauda’s approach to life had. Lauda is one of the many people who, when faced with life changing setbacks, decided to find a way to face life undeterred and continued to do the things he loved even though those very things were the cause of life changing setbacks. In life, everyone must balance the risks taken and rewards earned and sometimes the risks are too great and the reward slips through your fingers at the very last second and those moments are the bitterest pills to swallow.

‘The risk I took was calculated but, man, am I bad at math.’

Risk is and always will be a huge part of life. We take risks every day. We decided to take the risk to get out of bed. If you didn’t, you took the risk to stay in bed all day. Driving in your car is a calculated risk. Walking is a calculated risk. Regardless of what you do there is a level of risk involved. Even the most seemingly inconsequential choices in life come with risk and, if the wrong choice is made, there are consequences. However, it’s when risks are taken in public and go badly that people seem to forget that they too have made stupid decisions and taken stupid risks as well. Remember, there are people who willingly choose to climb into a shopping trolley and get pushed down a hill and I’m betting some people don’t talk nearly as much about those bad decisions. But, here’s the thing, we can choose to learn from these risks. If we decide against learning, we will learn the hard way; by making the same mistakes and taking the same risks again and getting the same results.

“But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” – Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa

Humanity learns. We learn from the risks we take. We learn from chances and gambles taken. We endeavour to continue moving forward regardless of risks because we learn from our past mistakes and setbacks. We learn that mistakes are not the end but a new starting point, provided by the wisdom we gained from failing. Failure, no matter how near or far you were from success, is not the end. What matters is the lessons you take from it all. The experience gained is invaluable and using it is a sure fire way to level up and take on the challenges before you in new and better ways. Of course, we will get knocked back and knocked down, bruise our egos but we must learn to get up, brush off the damage and continue. We shall persevere, through struggles and close calls. Moving fearlessly forward.

“Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”