How Failure Develops Perseverance and Enhances Learning

One important thing to remember about failure is that it helps us develop perseverance and enhances our learning.

Of course, failure doesn’t feel great, but it can help develop many skills.

We can find advice on how to handle failure everywhere

A parent gives advice on dealing with failure to encourage their child to persevere when the youngster may think that the worst has just happened to them.

Teachers tell their students that failing one test doesn’t mean the whole school year is ruined and encourage them to use failure to do better the next time.

Coaches use stories about overcoming failure to build the strength of character and an increased will to succeed.

How Failure Develops Perseverance and Enhances Learning

With just a few clicks of your mouse, you can find quotes on failure from Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Benjamin Franklin, J. K. Rowling, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, and hundreds more.

Some quotes on failure that have become clichés are:

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ~ Thomas Edison

Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. ~ Napoleon Hill

You never fail until you stop trying. ~ Albert Einstein

Many of the greatest minds and successful people frame failure as a learning tool, not an event.

Positive role models in every phase of our lives try to instill in us the mindset that there’s no such thing as failing.

We even provide the same encouragement to our loved ones when they fail at something.

Those views on failure beg the question, “Does failure exist?”

I believe the answer is “Yes, but.”

Yes, failure exists.

Failure is all around us

Ask a salesperson who has lost a prospect to a competitor, and they’ll tell you they failed to get the account.

When an entrepreneur has to close their doors and file for bankruptcy, that is a failed attempt in the business.

In sports, when you lose a game, that’s a failure.

Then there are failed marriages, job interviews, and life goals.

Yes, failure exists, and in many areas of our lives

Some failures are more disruptive than others, but I’d be willing to say that we all fail at something almost daily.

The question is not, “Does failure exist?”

The question is, “Are you going to let your failures be permanent?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it best when he said, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.”

Our failures can be our greatest learning tools.

They give us the chance to examine what we did wrong.

When we fail a test in school, we can think about improving our study habits.

If a romantic relationship fails, we can think about what we may have done wrong.

Then we ensure we don’t make the same mistakes the next time.

When we fail in a business venture, we can learn from that experience.

Then use it to be sure that our next attempt will be better researched and more carefully executed.

After any failure in life, we can review our mistakes and develop perseverance for future paths

By identifying why we failed at an individual task, we become smarter and stronger and are more likely to succeed on our next attempt.

Life is made up of many failures.

Some small and some large, but the key is to decide to use those failures as learning tools and try again.

When you read many of the famous quotes on failure, the root of their message is actually about developing perseverance:

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. ~ Lance Armstrong

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. ~ Henry Ford

Just because you fail once doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything. ~ Marilyn Monroe

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. ~ Winston S. Churchill

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, and how you can still come out of it. ~ Maya Angelou

The key point that so many great figures in history have made is that failing at a task, even repeatedly, doesn’t make you a failure

I’d like to share my failure quote:

If you haven’t failed at something, you haven’t tried anything. ~ Richard London

Think about it.

The only way to live without experiencing failure is to do nothing your entire life.

If you don’t want to fail ever, you should never go to school, have a job, go on a date, or do anything.

That way, you can be the only person who never failed at something.

But, I think you’ll agree that you’d be someone everyone around you would look at with pity and say that you failed in life.

So, failure exists, but developing perseverance and learning other skills from those failures is vital.

Mastering the trait of perseverance and discovering how to learn from failures are essential to finding success and personal satisfaction in life.

See failures for what they are; individual events.

Then find the lessons in each of your failures and use them to build your greatest successes.

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