Someone sent me an e-mail the other day that had a profound statement in it... If you’re not failing, you’re not learning.
At times we wonder if we’re moving ahead, moving forward along our chosen path. This usually comes when nothing much has changed in a long while, or when we run into problems that cause us doubt.
During the past few years, I have had periods of both. I have had many times when I felt I wasn’t progressing, wasn’t growing. I was doing the same old thing I had always been doing. I felt that my gifts weren’t getting any stronger, I wasn’t learning anything. Usually when that happened, I would hit a moment where something told me to try something different. In trying this something different, I realized that I had leapt ahead one huge giant step, and all within that instant.
And of course, there are times when something goes terribly wrong. The most recent happening like this was a few months ago. Now, whether I actually did anything wrong or not is still unsure. I allow the possibility that I did, though I keep getting told by others that this most likely was not the case, and only getting told by one that it was. The situation caused me to doubt much of what I do.
As a person, one has to fail, at least at some point. If we go through life, and do everything right and perfect, what do we learn from it? What were the other possibilities we might have gone through and what would they have done for us? Ok, so if the other possibilities might not have worked, what could we have gained from them? Well the real question is... What could we have learned from it?
Every time we make a mistake, every time we screw up, we learn from it, or should. When we’re made to doubt what we do, we learn. You see, when we doubt something we have been doing, we tend to rethink through the process. We look to see if there was anything that could have been done differently, or anything that could have been added to, or removed from the process to make it better. We might even question whether we should have been doing that process in the first place.
In questioning and rethinking, we see things more clearly, more honestly. We find that the path we were following is sound, or that some things could be changed to make it better. When we do this, what are we actually doing? We’re learning. That’s right, learning. If we don’t make mistakes, or don’t have reason to rethink what we do, we don’t learn. Now, hopefully in the learning process we manage to not make the same mistake again. That means that we are truly learning.
Now, in looking at the times that we’re caused to doubt everything we do, at times we might feel ‘chopped off at the knees’, as I did a few months ago. It was an interesting thing when that phrase came to mind. We feel that we have been cut back or chopped off. What do we do to plants in the fall? Well, we cut them back. Why? Well, because it makes them grow stronger. In cutting the branches back, a tree will grow fuller, its branches thicker, stronger. Doesn’t the same thing happen to people, that is if they learn?
So, what does this all mean? I guess it means that we need to fail. We need to be chopped off now and then. Because then we continue to grow. But we grow fuller and stronger, as I am doing now.
So, go forth, and don’t be afraid to fail once in a while. And most assuredly, don’t be afraid to learn from it.