Why do we fall, sir?

“Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” - Alfred

Every great person advises you to fail, so do it.

Failure is essential for success and simultaneously one of the worst feelings out there. When you fail, you get the reality check that you aren't as prepared for the task as you thought you were. Your ego can't cope with this harsh reality that you're just not good enough. This applies to studying, sports, dating, and business. When you study for your next test and give 110% effort, learning multiple hours straight without distraction, sleeping well, eating clean so that your mind can perform, exercising, and repeating this process for days until you understand every aspect of the topic the teacher is testing you on, you wouldn't fail, would you?

When you get bad grades, you haven't learned enough, and rightfully so, you failed to get a good result. If you get in the ring and lose a fight, you weren't prepared enough because maybe you'd rather stay at home than attend training, or you didn't go for a run, and rightfully so, you lose. Failure itself isn't good or bad; it just tells you that you didn't put in the work required to achieve the result you desired. This realization hits us right in the face because we often believe we did enough and are good anyway, but we can't let the lesson slip that we have to do more next time, and there will always be a second time, slightly different but still a second chance.

"When you lose, don't lose the lesson." - Dalai Lama

When you fail, you have to ignore the emotions that come with failure and accept the reality as it is: You aren't good enough, yet. There is no shame in failing, only in not learning.

How do children learn to walk? They pull themselves up on a chair or the table, trying to stand upright, and then they fall. Maybe they get hurt or scared for a moment, but they try again and again until they learn the ability to stand upright. Then they try to walk by setting one foot forward and probably falling again but still repeating the same moves until they succeed. Children learn most of their abilities through sheer trial and error, forcing their way to success without ever doubting themselves.

Children also learn new skills and fast-track their progress by mimicking the behavior of their parents and people around them. We can adapt the same way babies learn their way in the world and apply it to any endeavor we may want to approach. Either by just doing a ton of volume, adapting when failure hits until the movement or thing becomes burnt into our mind, or seeking outside mentors and role models who have already walked the road we want to follow.

Imagine you decided to get into boxing. You go to a mentor or coach who teaches you the right form to throw a jab, and then you throw jabs for two hours straight every day with as good form as you could. It would be unreasonable not to be good at throwing jabs after a certain period because you just did too many repetitions to be bad. Mentors are a fast track to success because, on one hand, they show you it's possible to reach your goal, for example, wealth, fame, or success in sports, and on the other hand, they can give you insights and advice they had to bleed for while learning them. That is the reason I'm writing this blog post — to tell you about how I earned myself a bloody nose, as well as how you can avoid it and still reach your goal.

Take Icarus, for example; he and his father built wings to escape from the labyrinth of Crete. While trying their new invention, Icarus flew too close to the sun, even though his father warned him, and he crashed into the ocean. By learning the story of Icarus, you get the lesson he had to pay with his life; you get all the upsides without the pain in a shorter period of time. You can also use the pain and uncomfortable feelings associated with failing as fuel for your work. Pain is a strong motivator and sometimes the strongest of them all. When going through heartbreak or dealing with rejection and bullying, you feel pain deep inside you, a source of great energy that wants to be freed and used to achieve a productive goal. Failure and rejection aren't a problem when you learn and don't repeat the same mistake again. Not learning from past mistakes or the mistakes of other greats is a sign of ignorance, lacking awareness of your situation, and pride which hinders you from being humble enough to accept you were wrong.

Furthermore, you have to try new things to expand your horizon mentally and physically, and to expect not to fail is just unreasonable. When you try to get into programming, you start as a novice when coding your first project, and it certainly won't be great or work the way you intended it to. You "failed," but if you avoided this "failure," you wouldn't have the opportunity to learn and grow your knowledge. If you're wrong, just change your mind.

When you hit a wall and life says to you that you're not prepared for success or had a wrong view on a situation, just accept it and carry on into your new direction. Alex Hormozi, a great entrepreneur and online teacher, says that failure by ourselves doesn't matter; only when others judge you does it seem like a problem. When you think of yourself tripping over in your house, it hurts, but there is no feeling of embarrassment, but when you would trip over on a stage in front of 500 people, you certainly would feel ashamed even though the "mistake" was the same thing. So clearly, the emotional pain you feel isn't about you failing but what other people will think about you failing. So learn to be comfortable in your own skin and stop caring what other people might think about you. There will also be an upcoming post about different mindsets to help you stop caring what other people think about you.

Another piece of advice would be when you feel depressed or like a failure, see it as an opportunity to grow because you already feel like shit; there is nothing to lose, only happiness to gain. Failure is just life saying you aren't prepared or eligible to get what you want. Take it as a lesson and a checkpoint to move forward with your lessons learned.

Actionable advice: Be mindful of your failures and make a journal entry or some sort of database to store your failures and the lessons you have gained from them. Not trying is failing. When you try and fail, you at least get the chance to succeed.

Remember, life rewards the prepared.