1. The F word
Atychiphobia – the fear of failure. What we naturally define as the opposite of
success. Society says; “if you don’t succeed you fail.” We leave no other room for
another category when it comes to achievement. Anywhere in the world, the most
recognised people are the ones on the extremes of success and failure. In a race,
the spectators anticipate the one who will break the ribbon, and the one who will
come in last.
Remember when you were in school; after marking the tests the teacher would read
out the names and the results. All the students were interested in was who got the
highest and who got the lowest. So they waited in anticipation as the marks were
read out from highest to lowest. The earlier your name is called out, the better. As
soon as the teacher calls out your name, you can relax. What you wait for now, is the
lowest mark. Amazingly the one who got zero is not the victim of young loud laughs
and fingers pointing. It is the ones who got between three and one who are the
laughing stalk of the class. Their premise is; the one who got zero could have an
excuse that he didn’t write anything. But the ones who got between three and one,
do not have any excuse – they wrote something on that paper which means they
attempted to succeed.
If only we could all see failure just as that; attempted success gone wrong. The key
word here being ATTEMPTED. You’re only allowed to fail once you’ve tried
something. Those who do not attempt to succeed at anything do not qualify to be
called failures – failing should be an emotional reward to those who tried. Look
yourself in the mirror and say; “at least I tried.” Not only just that, but what kind of
people would we be if we didn’t try again, only this time harder. We need to learn the
art of failing forward – falling, getting up and doing it again. There needs to be
progress even in our failure. If the mark was 35% the first time around, the next time
you try increase it by 10%. Not good enough, but a 45% is better than a 35%. What
have you done? You’ve failed forward. Failed with progress. It’s better than the last
time. It’s bigger than the last time. But most importantly you are striving to improve.
Thomas Edison who created the light bulb is my ambassador of failing forward; “I did
not fail. I just found 1000 ways of how not to make a light bulb.” He said.
In my new book; Burning Desire. In the first chapter, stuck – I share three points on
how to make it through a failed attempt of success:
1. Execute the task – Every failed assignment is an unfinished task. After
you’re done beating yourself up about it, you need to get back on the horse
and ride again. This time more patiently. With more perseverance. And too
much persistence.
2. Keep a clear head – when trying again, it’s quite hard to perform and forget
about where you failed. You try so hard not to repeat the same mistake twice.

2. So much that you keep going back and thinking about where and how you
failed. You need to clear your head at such things. Clear your head from
mistakes. Clear your head from failures. This will require your full attention –
FOCUS.
3. Learn from it – Repeating the same mistake twice is a definite no-no. Falling
in the same place for the second time is ignorance. Learn from your failures.
Learn where things went wrong and improve that place. I came across a piece
of writing titled, ‘Rules for being human.’
 Rule #1: You will learn lessons
 Rule#2: There are no mistakes – only lessons
 Rule #3: A lesson is repeated until it is learned
 Rule#4: If you don’t learn the easy lessons, they get harder.
 Rule#5: You’ll know you’ve learnt a lesson when your actions change.
It’s quite hard to come to terms with the idea that failure can be a stepping stone to
great achievement, but if you consider the words of James Ullman, you’ll continue
pressing forward - “Challenge is the core and mainspring of all human action. If
there’s an ocean, we cross it. If there’s a disease, we cure it. If there’s a wrong, we
right it. If there’s a record, we break it. And if there’s a mountain, we climb it.”
Abel Mukwevho
Professional Speaker and Author on achievement, leadership and
entrepreneurship.