Success is corrected failure

 The fear of failure is common. It's a fear I have.

But we need to see failure differently. So called failure is actually a key to success, to arriving at your destination.

An airplane flight is off-course for the majority of it's flight from one destination to another. The reason it doesn't end up off course is because its flight path is continuously checked and corrected. Among the many factors that affect change are winds, temperature, fuel consumption, weather, aircraft weight. Add unexpected delays like a an ATC direction to change altitude, fly a holding pattern, etc.

Imagine the enormous amount of pre-planning a rocket flight to the moon entails. Yet, even with all that planning the flight itself is off-course most of the time. The rocket (and mission control) is constantly monitoring the progress and making corrections.

Small corrections are easier and faster to make than waiting until something big needs to be fixed.

Life tests us.

Frequently it seems things get harder right before they get better. It's the darkest before dawn metaphor, except that if we give up the dawn into our quantum leap won't happen.

It's easy to look at the "failures", anxiety, confusion, problems, chaos, etc. that we see as "proof" our efforts aren't working.

Part of these troubles are caused through our belief systems that are trying to lull us back into the status quo, the safe, comfortable zone. 

Part of problems are just the nature of our flight where we just need to make course adjustments and corrections. This is where knowing what we want, what our destination is, provides guidance.

Failures are indicative that an adjustment is needed, or a tactic needs to be changed. It is exceptionally rare that failures are "proof" that we should give up on the dream.

We need to allow ourselves room to make mistakes, to fail.

We also need to allow others to make mistakes and fail.

It is only after falling many times that an infant learns to walk. Not reaching our destination through the hows and means we expected to implement doesn't mean the goal is unworthy. Maybe we need to be more open-minded, and have faith that our "how" may not be the way for us to reach the dream, and that there may be a better path to reach our destination.

We cannot be stuck--focused--on the means instead of the end. If we focus on the failures, it will be enormously difficult to get past them, to see and accept alternate ways around them and to learn from them.

Focusing on the end helps us to learn from and take corrective actions from our "failures". Instead of being failures, these stumbling blocks become stepping stones to lift us towards success.