...an F word

:) no no not the curse word...
Failure used to be the worst F word (in my opinion). Loved by few, feared by most, experienced by all at one point or another. Recently it seems that I'm seeing this F word more frequently in many blogs and business articles, it has even been emphasised in course content. Even more shocking is that sometimes this F word is viewed as good! *clutches chest* Failure?!?!? Good?!?!?!? SHOCK!!! (not really).

It seems that this very feared and once widely avoided and villianised concept of failure is not the beast we need to avoid; instead, what we need to avoid is maintaining the mindset that caused the failure in the first place. Failure may be regarded as a concept because it takes the shape of each situation; there is no black and white criteria for it (even with grades). The newer school of thought has identified failure as not such a bad thing. Many times it is from close calls with failure, fear of failure, other person's failures, personal failures that our greatest successes become realised. I think of it as the cocoon that the caterpillar has to go into before it becomes the beautiful butterfly.

It seems that change is inevitable, we are faced with many different challenges on a daily basis and as the world has gotten smaller the driver (change) has begun to force many persons out of the all inclusive "comfort zone" mindset. The road tends to have many potholes (failures) and although these are to be avoided for obvious reasons; damage to finances, family life and other things, when it does happen, failure is to be regarded with great care, pulled apart and examined so we learn and grow. It appears that failure can be a good thing after all! This is not to say we should aim to fail, quite the opposite, but if we do fail or we seem near to fail we should stop, examine and learn from said situation, solicit the advice of others and bloom!

SB