Failing gives you resilience and patience

THE General Election was a failure.

Theresa May and the Conservatives failed to get the outright majority they wanted.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party failed to win an election for a third time in a row.

Tim Farron failed to achieve a comeback for the Liberal Democrats.

Nicola Sturgeon failed to maintain the number of Scottish MPs and a mandate for independence.

Everyone failed that is except UKIP who ‘failed because they had been too successful!’ (according to party leader, Paul Nuttall).

But is it such a bad thing to fail?

I would suggest that failure can be a good thing and there are real benefits.

Let’s think of some really successful people, were they always so successful?

Richard Branson is dyslexic and left school with three GCSEs.

JK Rowling was a broke, depressed, single mother living on benefits.

Walt Disney was told by his former newspaper editor that ‘he lacked imagination and had no good ideas’.

Steven Spielberg failed twice to get into the University of Southern California’s School of Dramatic Arts.

Abraham Lincoln achieved the incredible feat of going into the army as a captain and coming out in the lowest rank of a private.

Elvis Presley, after his first performance was told he ‘wasn’t going nowhere’ and ought to go back to driving a truck.

And as a child Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four, did not read until he was seven and was thought to have learning disabilities.

What would have happened if any of these individuals had let failure hold them back?

What can we learn from failure?

I would say it’s real experience of life; knowledge of what does not work; resilience and patience; growth in character and maturity, and valuing what really matters.

Do you feel a bit of a failure sometimes?

The good news is you are not alone and it is not the end of the world.

I love what it says in the Bible, ‘Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall arise!’ (Micah 7:8).

Be encouraged, you are free to fail.