Using Failure as Fuel

If you ask nearly everyone what one of their greatest fears is, they will tell you failure. We fear failure, but yet many do not realize the power it has to fuel our success. Think about some of the most successful leaders and CEOs in our world; if they gave up after one failure, then the world would miss out on their products and services. Failure is ultimately something that is a part of great success. Without failures, we would never know how to improve things or ourselves. Let’s talk instead about giving in to the fear of failure, how you can combat it to fuel better success.

Understanding perfection is a facade. 

We can all agree that we know perfection isn’t absolute. As in nature as also in life, nothing is 100% perfect. Even if we know and understand that perfection isn’t attainable for anyone, we still put pressure on ourselves to get as close as possible. If you want to turn even the most significant failures into fuel truly, you have to let go of the dream of perfection in order to grow. I could have just given up on the pursuit of ever climbing K2 and Broad Peak again even after I couldn’t reach the summit, but letting go of that perfect dream will allow me to try again. When we release control of the idea of perfection, this will enable us to find the beauty in failure and how to overcome it. 

Learn from your failures.

Some of the most extraordinary things that we can learn when faced with failure are what we can learn from it. If we don’t take the time to learn from our mistakes and our failures, how can we grow? If you genuinely want to let yourself use your failures as fuel, let it motivate you and teach you how you can do better next time. In my experience with my attempt to summit K2 and Broad Peak, I was able to learn so much about what to do differently next. I took the lessons learned from these summits to improve my rope skills, know how to climb in better weather conditions, what better gear I will need, and even have an overall more significant idea of the layout of these two summits. 

Take a pause after failure, but don’t give up.

An important thing to remember with failure is to not entirely give up. It can seem easy, especially with more profound setbacks, to give up on your goal or dream, but I recommend you do not. Although I did not summit K2 and Broad Peak, I have been considering this as not only a lesson learned but also a moment to pause. Pausing things after a failure is not harmful and doesn’t mean you have to give up on your goal or dream. Taking a break after defeat gives you time to reflect and regather your plan and lessons to improve for when you try again. Sometimes you might have to try multiple times before you succeed, but don’t give up your dreams after one failed attempt. Always let that setback turn into one hell of a comeback.