How Can You Turn Failures into Opportunities

If you're looking to live a life of more freedom, fulfillment and less stress you may want to consider redefining the narrative surrounding your failures.

Can we address the elephant in the room? You may have heard of it---FAILURE. It seems that there is a general consensus when it comes to addressing failures or mistakes. We typically focus on the tag or label of failure or mistake as opposed to what we learned from the experience. What I know to be truth is success cannot exist without failures. Unpopular opinion: Failure is imminent. What makes the difference between you moving forward or you remaining paralyze by the moment? Your perspective! How you view your said "failure" is what makes or breaks up.

It is through failure that we learn. It is through failure that we grow.

I used to liken my failures to the dark side of the moon, quietly observing and never really acknowledging that they would ever be seen by others. I used them as a reference point to push me forward, not as a place where I dwelled on what happened nor talked about them with others. In recent years its been the sharing of my own failures that I was not only able to inspire and encourage others, but rehearse some of the lessons learned through my failures that were applicable still today.

Learning to turn failures into opportunities is one of the most important skills you will learn in life.

Sometimes we have to take a step back, appreciate what has happened and see what we can learn from that particular experience. I personally am no stranger to turning life's setbacks into opportunities. In 2006 I failed out of nursing school by literally 1-2 points in one of my classes. It was one of the most devastating and ultimately embarrassing experiences I had ever experienced. As the vice president of my class at that time it felt like I had not only failed myself and my parents, but I had failed my classmates. For days I was paralyzed by the thought of my well planned future being "destroyed" as I knew it. I recall those days vividly, but without hesitation I knew I couldn't stay in that state. I instinctually started looking for what felt like the next best step. Rathe than focusing on the "failure" I remember daily telling myself is a setup for a better opportunity. While a part of me wasn't sure if this was true I allowed that blind optimism to be my guide. Long story short I was contacted one week before the following semester was about to start and was offered an opportunity to transition into their Vocational nursing program which I graduated from the following year.

How do you turn failure into success?

What did that experience teach me? It taught me that there's no #magic pill or genie lamp to rub when it comes to turning your failures into opportunities. It simply takes effort. Start by looking at what happened from another person's perspective - as if you were a friend who was watching the situation unfold instead of someone who was involved in it. Try to find something good in the experience, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem at first. Then take the time to figure out what went wrong so that you can avoid making the same mistake again in the #future.

No worthwhile dream was ever achieved without the dreamer trying and failing and trying again until success came their way.

Failure doesn't have to define us; it's just something we experience from time to time in our lives on the road to success, happiness and fulfillment.

So take a chance today and don't be afraid to fail at something that really matters to you!