First . Attempt . In . Learning

“If you F. A. I. l never give up because F. A.I.L means First Attempt In Learning. E. N. D is not the end in fact E. N. D means Effort Never Dies. If you get N. O. as an answer remember N. O. means Next Opportunity. So let’s be positive” Quoted by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. Who didn’t heard this quote, but still many of us get afraid of getting fail, many of us get nervous by hearing the word end and many of us don’t want to listen to the word any as an answer. Beneath this fear of failure, many of us are actually afraid of rejection – the dreadful feeling that our peers may perceive us poorly. Humans are social animals and we derive a considerable part of our self-identity from our perception of how others think of us. Many of us base our self-worth on our apparent relative status within our social circle. Failure as much as it hurts, is an important part of life. Failure is necessary, without failure we’d be less capable of compassion, empathy, kindness and great achievement, we would be less likely to reach for the moon and the star. Making mistakes is not a big deal as long as you learn from them and avoid repeating them. Each time you fail, your fear of failure becomes smaller, which allows you to take on even bigger challenges. A good idea is to listen attentively to the stories you tell yourself when you think you have failed; you will notice they will fall into one of the two broad categories. In one scenario, it’s always someone else’s fault — your friend, your partner, your organization; in the other, you see yourself as inadequate, stupid, ‘always ‘wrong, and oh yes, ‘a failure’. The discouragers are the real enemies. But those who appreciate others and have good things to say to them, end up motivating them, and before you know it, they are inspired enough to try harder in order to get closer to success. Everyone has potential and it is always good to appreciate another’s capabilities and boost their self-esteem. Therefore, one should accept failures and view them not as the end of one’s journey but as the start of a new journey that may present fresh opportunities.

So, take your failures as challenges and opportunities to improve yourself. I am a student pursuing a chartered accountancy course and it is my own experience that accepting failure as the end of the journey while assuming oneself to be ineligible for any kind of achievement, is the worst step that we can ever take in our life because quitting is never a solution. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. In simple words, unless you step out of your comfort zone and take a risk, you will never accomplish anything in life. The fear of failure is a paralyzing emotion that prevents a majority of people from attaining their goals. The best way to overcome this fear is to change the way you see failure. While we are naturally resilient by birth, our cultural conditioning, later on, tells us to avoid risk. An attitude of ‘safety first’ makes us fearful of taking action. Ask yourself, what will happen if I fail – Will it be punishment? Ridicule? Snickers? Shame? Insult? Anxiety? Loss? Delay? Look these fears straight in the eye for a long time without judging and they will go poof.. disappear like a genie. They go away because they are just illusions. Ordinarily, when you are successful, you want to be more successful and so you tend to lose your ability to rejoice in success. Greed makes you look at the other as a competitor, a threat. Instead of learning from failure, you wallow in self-pity. Failure is, in fact, an opportunity to learn. Success and failure become points of celebration rather than points of frustration. When success or failure comes, see the surprise. See the many variables that have contributed to it. Don’t be dead to surprise. In every moment, bring the quality of surprise and embrace each moment with this energy, and then you will be able to celebrate success and failure. When you celebrate your success, don’t fill that moment with greed, fill it with joy. Include planning for the future. Planning is part of greed but is also part of wise living. Greed is like an ulcer to the soul. When faced with success or failure, don’t be dead to surprise. The moment wonderment is dead, you are dead. Embrace each moment with wonder and you can then celebrate both success and failure. Being upset is self-damaging. See opportunity in difficulty; no difficulty in opportunity. See every experience and situation as messages from the Divine. Operate from infinite possibilities, be prosperity-conscious. Happier people have a healthier sense of self-worth and prefer living by their own standards. They are comfortable in their own skin and are happy being themselves. Not that they are over-confident or have an excessive self-belief; they are more self-aware and are at peace with their strengths and weaknesses. To build higher self-worth, you need to engage in some serious self-work. Learn to accept and love yourself for who are, work with positive affirmations to train your anxious self to feel more complete and whole, and consider meditation to build inner strength. Success at anything depends upon concentrated energy. One-pointed concentration, if directed with will-power and energy, generates a magnetic field that can attract success. To be resilient, you must strengthen your will power. Every day, try and accomplish new things. It could be small and simple tasks that you thought you were incapable of doing – learning to swim, taking up a new language, starting a conversation with a new person. Your will power holds behind it limitless energy to manifest great things. But you need to strengthen and activate it with practice, just as you would a weak muscle in your body. Trust that when you jump into a new field, you would be unstable for a moment but then you will stabilize yourself. Trust in yourself, in your knowledge, in your passion, in the God above, and take a leap of faith. Even if you fail, you will learn lessons in what to avoid the next time and then leap again in the same field or in another field. But you will have to take the leap. We need not look for an external guide. No one knows us better than ourselves so why not trust ourselves and act accordingly. We would learn from our failures and would be able to execute our duties towards self and others with a more enlightened view. If we move on in life with this perspective, the outcome is bound to be gratifying and enriching. It would pave way for long-lasting peace of mind and joy in our lives. Last but not least I must say, when there is no fear, there is only success and every goal can be reached easily. Follow your heart and do whatever you love to do and beat your failure from failure.