Failure has gotten itself a bad reputation…

And I for one think it’s totally uncalled for…..

Failure really is a gift.

I know that sounds like group-work, healing-circle, psycho-babble; but seriously it really is!

Nikki Gemmell (The Weekend Australian Magazine) wrote in her article Dust Yourself Down, about Wimbledon High School in England holding a ‘Failure Week’ where the emphasis was on having a go as opposed to playing it safe.

The headmistress Heather Hanbury wanted to show “it is completely acceptable and normal not to succeed at times in life…the girls need to learn how to fail well…and how to get over it…fear of failing can be really crippling and stop the girls doing things they really want to do.”

How fantastic is it to see the educational system embracing failure rather than this politically correct ‘certificates for all’ attitude.

Similarly Brisbane Girls Grammar has introduced a course for first year students centred upon the importance of risk-taking, building resilience and learning to view failure not as a set-back but as a way to grow. I think many of us (myself included) could do with a dose of this type of learning.

Try to guess who was described in his primary school as ‘a constant trouble to everybody, he cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere. And he took 3 attempts’ to gain entrance to Sandhurst Military College.

None other than Winston Churchill who is frequently listed as Britain’s greatest Prime Minister. Crucially though Churchill was always a risk-taker.

I thought many times about failure over the two weeks in London watching our 2012 Olympians ‘fail’ in the eyes of the media who interviewed them.

How many times did we hear them being asked about how ‘disappointed’ they must be at only winning a silver or bronze medal.

But what I heard instead were many athletes reminding us all just how uniquely pressured the Olympic arena is, how common it is for the favourite to ‘fail’ and therefore how precious and valued a medal of any colour should be.

They’re absolutely right of course.

Weve become used to our Olympians punching above their weights in so many sports.

Now the world has caught on and caught up! But does that mean we are failing or perhaps is it just reminding us how rare and precious an Olympic gold medal is.

And maybe we shouldn’t take for granted that Australia will finish high on the medal table. To be able to state that you are truly the very best in the world, at that very moment, is a very special thing indeed.

I saw a common thread in the stories of Sally Pearson, Anna Meares and especially Tom Slingsby at the London Olympics. It could be argued that all of them ‘failed’ in Beijing. Sally and Anna both came home with silver medals.

Sally’s silver in Beijing was quite unexpected so it wasn’t a failure at all.

Many athletes could happily retired but not one as driven as her. She saw it as unfinished business and used the ‘failure’ to drive her forward to become the elite athlete and World and Olympic Champion that she is now.

Anna Meares had a horrific accident on the track only weeks before Beijing and was 2mm away from permanent paralysis.

So her silver medal was somewhat of a triumph. She set a goal however to turn the tables on Victoria Pendleton and had to endure years of losing to her arch rival. Had she not continued to take risks in the very public arena of elite cycling she would not be Olympic Champion today.

Tom Slingsby did by many measures fail in Beijing.

He came in as World Champion and a red hot favourite and had his worst regatta ever finishing 22^nd. He was close to giving sailing away entirely until he heard an inspiring speech from a former sailing champion. He also used his ‘failure’ to motivate him for the next four years to achieve Olympic gold.

Failure is never the end of the world; you’re always learning something in the process and it’s often veering you onto a different, better, stronger path.

As Henry Ford said “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” So failure is a gift, an opportunity and a way to set a different path to even greater success.

Tagged as: career change, Life Lessons