The Grade That Changed Everything
I stared at the clock as it was perpetually stuck at 10:59am, waiting endlessly to receive my grades back for the English essay that I had tirelessly prepared for.
When the last second approached, it was out. I scrambled through my bag to find my laptop, then opened the assessment notification. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. I had failed. In desperation, I slammed the lid shut to avoid making eye contact with my laptop.
There was a slight piece of confidence that remained inside of me, telling me that I had misread the letter. So, I slightly pulled the lid up to re-look, and still there was the bold, yellow letter D, that covered half my vision. Minutes went by in pure silence. I said nothing.
After a solid fifteen minutes had been washed away with my tears, I finally got the courage to open my screen and read the comment. ”You have written a great Essay Sparsh”. Seven words in and I was about to throw my laptop out of the window. ”Unfortunately, you have not answered the Essay question.” These eight words shifted my perspective completely.
I used to believe that it was the letter grade that determined everything. But it truly wasn’t. After failing I realised that you need to fail to win. Failing allows you to look back at your mistakes.
Mistakes are a blueprint for success. They are what cause you to fail, and what help you to succeed.
Today, I am not going to discuss how to overcome failure. I am going to teach you how to use failure as a tool, like a blueprint, to move forward and achieve your goals. To do this we need to master the concept of mistakes, the prime cause of failure.
Why Mistakes Are the Engine of Progress
Mistakes are what drive us to move forward. Without making mistakes, you wouldn’t go far. Mistakes themselves don’t make you go up, but the process of learning from them does. Many struggle or fail to acknowledge that they had even made a mistake, leading to missed chances of making improvements.
We all know the inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison. Many might say that the bulb was discovered through luck, but it was through the consistent suffering of making mistakes. Edison managed to discover the light bulb after about 10,000 attempts.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Thomas Edison
His quote captures how Edison not only showed dedication and perseverance, but displayed how he could consistently bounce back from his mistakes and quickly learn from them. The 10,000 attempts weren’t useless. They were significant steps toward discovering the right way, after eliminating 10,000 wrong ones.
The Stallone Blueprint
Edison may have eliminated 10,000 wrong answers in a laboratory, but Sylvester Stallone did something much more extreme. He was rejected over a thousand times because of his half-paralysed face.
Throughout his early childhood, Stallone was born with a damaged nerve which caused his lower-left part of his face to be partially paralysed. This caused him to have slurred speech and a distinct look on his face. He had a dream of becoming an actor, not just any ordinary actor. He wanted to become a movie star. And for him, there was no alternative.
The desire to achieve had helped Stallone succeed. It wasn’t motivation, which is temporary. It was his hunger to keep pushing through. All those large offers were treated as distractions toward his overall goal. The people who can realise that a short-term win is a long-term trap are the ones who ultimately succeed.
The difference between a wise and a foolish person is their response to a setback: a wise person makes the mistake only once. A foolish person makes the same mistake twice.
Failures Are Pages in Your Blueprint
To achieve your goals, you MUST fail. There has been no person who has succeeded without failing. Most people can accept failure. But their response towards failure is what separates them from the average.
The Three Qualities That Matter
Without self-awareness, all mistakes are worthless.
How to Take Action Today
Your goal isn’t to fail, or to avoid it. It is to go and try something new. Without making the attempt, you can’t fail. Without failing, you can’t grow.
Final Thoughts
You learn most while failing. Failure may feel like pain now. You grow when you experience pain. Pain is hard to endure, but you’ll thank yourself later when you make progress. So, learn to accept failure. Use it like a blueprint to succeed. There will be no regrets later if you go and start.
The greatest pain you’ll ever face is not starting.