Did you know that your true character and self-discovery is found in the journey, not the outcome?

That every person that you admire has failed at least once in their lives.

Look at JK Rowling, 10 publishers rejected her manuscript.  Michael Jordan one of the greatest ever basketballers actually didn’t make his high-school basketball team and Beethoven’s violin teacher said that he had no musical talent whatsoever.

So why did these people, and others keep pursuing their dreams?

Especially when they were faced with failure at the start?

Where did they find their grit and determination?

You see, they just had to.

They knew within themselves that they had to follow their life purpose and it wasn’t going to matter how many heartaches or rejection that they were going to face.

JK Rowling just HAD to invent Harry Potter, Beethoven knew he had to express and share the music that was within him and Michael Jordan? Well, he just needed to bounce that ball.

What we all need to realise is that if you’re only doing something to be successful in one particular outcome, what you’re doing is stopping yourself from experiencing the passion of pursuit.

Having said that, not all dreams are going to come true, but that doesn’t mean that your dream isn’t valid.

I know that sometimes when we fail at something we become so overwhelmed at that loss that we don’t realise that the self-knowledge that we gained along the way was the important thing.

What defines us is the pursuit, not the outcome.

Unfortunately, we live in a world that’s all about winners or losers.

As though it can only be one or the other, there’s no in between.

And I’m not just talking about sports but love, career etc.

Look at a winner, they’re put up on a pedestal to receive their rewards while those that haven’t won just seem to become forgotten.

How wonderful would it be, if people actually started to celebrate the endeavour and the person that was an earnest trier?

With Brisbane winning the 2032 Olympics and the 2020 Olympics games on now, delayed a year because of Covid, everything is always about ‘going for gold’.

When did it just not become enough to win Silver or Bronze?

When did it not become enough to actually make it to the starting line? I mean, just to get to the starting line in the Olympics means that the person has been training for YEARS!

Why is that not, in itself, something to be acknowledged and admired?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be successful either, you just need to make sure that the success that you’re aiming for is what YOU really want.

Not what your family expects and not what society expects.

But what YOU as an individual, want to personally achieve / do.

I’m not talking about celebrating failure to compensate for not winning, but it’s about the instructional nature of failing that we’re talking about.

Because if you celebrate failure, you are kind of missing the point, because it makes a contorted version of winning through rationalisation.

By doing that, you’re actually going to deprive yourself of the opportunity to learn.

To explain what I mean here, the chef whose food is constantly sent back may write it off as being ‘misunderstood’ when the fact may be that he’s just not a very good cook.

Instead, when you fail it gives you the opportunity to ask yourself, “am I on the right path?”, “is this what I really want to be doing?”, “does what I’m doing really suit me?”

If the answer to those questions is ‘yes’ then it gives you the encouragement to keep on going.

Can you see how failure plays such an important part in our lives?

I’m not quite sure when the respect for trying seems to stop in our lives.

When a baby is trying to walk, we applaud and cheer them on with every valiant attempt, when they don’t succeed, we commiserate with them.

Imagine if with every attempt we frowned and told them that they’re no good because they didn’t get it first go?

Unfortunately, society has taught us to devalue and even demonise people that aren’t ‘winning’.

If we actually accepted that losing was perfectly OK as long as effort was made, then just maybe, we would all back ourselves a lot more than we do.

We can see that ‘not losing’ is starting in pre-school where kids get awards just for turning up.  That just participating is no different to actually coming ‘first’.

Where parents at your kids party may rig games so that every child wins a prize.

This makes a complete mockery of an actual achievement because no talent nor effort is required.

Kids today just aren’t allowed to fail or miss out.

This leads them to not understand that they won’t always get their way, or that they will miss out on things that they may want.

All this is going to do is create adults who don’t know how to cope with failure, or their lives not turning out the way that they want.

Success is hollow when it’s not something that is actually earned and failure is also useless when the lessons aren’t learned.

Yes, failure is meant to hurt.

This isn’t saying that failure is actually meant to be the goal.  What it’s meant to do is instruct you, to make you look at your life and the choices that you’ve made and are going to make.

When you see that last runner in a marathon limp over the finish line, you’re witnessing character and fortitude.

Hopefully, you and I will learn from our defeat.

That we will be reminded to believe in ourselves, to understand that winning isn’t all about being first but actually committing to the journey and getting to the end.

Losing is never fun, but what it can be is the absolute making of you.

So, if you’re afraid of losing, and that makes you not even try, you’re not living your journey of self-discovery.

Self-discovery is what happens when we fail.  When we look at that failure and ask ourselves those questions above.

Don’t be afraid of failing, be afraid of not giving it your all in the trying.

Love & light

Katrina x