Failure is ALWAYS an option!

The word, FAILURE, usually congers up uneasy feelings of past mistakes and heartache. But failure is simply a part of life. A NECESSARY PART!

There will always be hurt in failure. If we fail in something we've worked really hard or long in, the hurt is more. Shattered goals, divorces, promotions, etc... It will hurt! However, with repeated failure, come resilience.

No matter how hard we try, sometimes it's not enough. We don't all win, we don't all get a medal, the promotion is not always meant for us. It doesn't mean we don't try. We should try! We should work our tails off to try and conquer our goals!

But we will fail. Often. But with each failure, we learn. We learn how to get through the obstacle. We learn that we CAN get through it. Here's a short parable to help illustrate.

"There was once a man walking up a large gravel hill to get out of the valley. As he worked hard to climb the hill, he kept sliding back down. He tried again and again, with no progress. His pants were torn and his knees were bloody from the constant slipping and falling that he had done.

Finally, he saw a very small path that was part way up. It had gravel, but was more packed down than the rest of the hill. He pushed hard and finally made it to the path. Though the journey was still hard, he made it to the top.

Then he realized that there was yet another gravel hill that he would need to climb. This time he looked for a path first and found one. He slipped a few times, but made it to this path and eventually made it to the top."

In this parable, the man suffered pain and frustration from constantly failing. He didn't give up. Through his failure, he learned what worked and what didn't. When faced with a similar problem later, he was better apt to know how to make it and to know that he could.

We can't be afraid to fail. Fear of failure is the #1 way we stop ourselves from achieving that which we want to do. Work, fail, work some more, fail some more, and become truly successful because of it.