The very best response to failure

I really don’t know why it takes us so long to discover this truth: the very best response to failure is to take responsibility for what we, alone, can do to learn, to grow, and ultimately to change.

But change does not come without a change of heart. It’s like the person who promises to change and never does, simply because all they have is their willpower. 

You need more than willpower to institute sustained behavioural change.

What is needed is a change of heart, that sees the need to change from a very visceral level. It’s almost like, the need to change comes from within, because the heart has seen how damaging or inefficient or futile the previous way was.

So many people in life never ultimately change, even though they make many attempts, simply because they cannot take responsibility that the buck stops with them.

The moment we take responsibility for what we have failed to do is the moment we establish what is called, in psychology speak, an internal locus of control. Having an internal locus of control suggests that things don’t just happen to us, but that we are integrally part of the dynamic. Internal locus of control, though it might sound tough to take responsibility at times for what is not ours, is, in other words, empowerment.

Having an external locus of control, on the other hand, means we see that ‘stuff’ happens to us, that we cannot be to blame, and therefore we do not have control. This is a chosen disempowerment. Not good!

Think of it this way. The more we protect ourselves by resisting the blame, especially to the point of blaming others, the more we reduce our only source of empowerment, because we essentially believe other people have more control over us than we have over our own results. This is an unwise way of living. We refuse to take the only control we have to take.

If only we can accept that occasionally we will fail, and if only we can take responsibility for that failure—all of our own contribution—we can learn a great deal, and in learning a great deal, we refuse to be controlled by external means.

By refusing to control others by blaming them,
we take the fullest control available to us.

Isn’t that liberating! The more responsibility we take, the more freedom we experience, because the more responsibility we can take, the less fear of failure controls us.

The more responsibility we take, the less we blame others, the better our relationships are, and all the more respect flows as a result, and that produces great peace which comes from great rectitude.

If we desire success, and every single human being does, we need to understand that taking responsibility is the very best response the failure. Only when we take responsibility amid failure do we demonstrate we’re fitted with the character for success.

If we were rather to blame others in the case of failure, we lose every sense of credibility, and our world sees that we would rather blame others than get on with getting it right next time. Blaming others not only burns relationships, it is a waste of time.

Think how inspiring it is whenever someone is not defined by their failures. When they get up off the canvas, when they show up the day after defeat, when they are determined to practice past a failing technique, and when they keep coming back, we admire such a person. Every. Single. Time. They show us what we all want to embody. Sure, dwelling within the failure at the time is a wretched experience, but how humbly we dwell in it says a lot about our character. It says a lot about our mental, emotional and spiritual resilience. But those who cannot bear such humiliation will not improve for they’re too busy minimising their own contribution.

The very best response to failure is to keep going, to resist blaming others, to define the positive in the negative, and to convert the disappointment into an opportunity.

Photo by Ian Kim on Unsplash