“Failure is often that early morning hour of darkness which precedes the dawning of the day of success.”

Leigh Mitchell Hodges

The lens through which one views failure is critical for creating a life of success and growth. I have found that there are two ways to look at failure.

First, you can see failure as an indictment of self and this manifests in seeing yourself as a failure. “I am a failure.” This isn’t healthy nor is it true. No one is a failure at an individual level. We will all fail many times in life. Heck, we likely fail on a daily basis as we fall short of being the person that we were created to be. But that doesn’t mean that we are a failure as a human being.

Second, you can see failure as a specific unsuccessful set of actions or behaviors in a particular moment in time. You might fail to achieve some goal, some target, etc.. But that doesn’t mean that you are a failure as a person. It just means that we were unsuccessful in our attempt at something. We have simply failed through our actions to create an outcome we desired.

The most important component in building a life of continual growth is looking at your failures through the lens of learning. One must constantly and continually seek our your failures with the intent to learn. Lean in to your frustrations, defeats and shortfalls. This is how you can create the “dawning day of success.”