Failure Is The Path To Success
Perfection is the enemy of progress.
This is what I like to think Leonardo Da Vinci said to himself whenever he failed.
Even a mind as great as his wasn't infallible. His early paintings do not have the sophistication of his later masterpieces. His notes and drawings were constantly re-iterated to hone his ideas.
Da Vinci is considered the epitome of the Renaissance Man. A genius who could try his hand at anything and succeed. Yet, even the great Da Vinci failed.
I'm no Da Vinci, but I do have one thing in common with him.
I've failed and I will fail again.
As much as it hurts, failure is the best teacher. You learn more from your failures than your successes. You learn how to improve, how to eke a little bit more out of yourself.
Failure is a dirty word, but it shouldn't be. Failure should be applauded as much as success, if not more. Failure is the first step on the path to success.
Without failure, you lack feedback. You lack an indication of what you need to work on. What you can improve.
Each failure of mine has taught me a lesson. As good as my successes have been, the failures taught me more. They kept me grounded and made me humble. Too much success can go to your head.
Perfection is impossible in an imperfect world. The best we can hope for is to do better than before. To improve ever so slightly, but improve nonetheless.
Da Vinci succeeded because of his failures, not in spite of them. The same applies to you and me.
You may fail, but next time, fail better.
"Failure is the first step on the path to success " - this is so true. You learn from your mistakes and you try to improve each time. No one is perfect and we live in an imperfect world as you said. If everyone was perfect, then we would not have anything to strive for. We would not have ambition. The more we fail the more we try harder to get to our dreams. Nothing is impossible. Everything is possible if you put your mind to it, you can do it. Excellent article Tom. You hit the nail on its head there :-)