“Every ‘no’ is one step closer to a ‘yes.'”

You’ve heard that before, right? If you work in sales, you have.

What about this one. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” That one’s attributed to Thomas Edison.

These quotes like so many others are the way I’ve been taught to think about failure. To know that failure isn’t permanant, but only a step toward success. It’s one of those topics that leads to creating motivational posters with inspiring images of people climbing mountains, winning races, or lifting weights.

The other day, I was reminded that this isn’t the only type of failure. The other type is where you don’t try at all. It’s deceptive, because the person who practices in this type of failure typically thinks they are avoiding failure. Instead they are letting it set up permanent residence in their entire being.

The way I see it, there are two types of Failure:

1. Failure to try.
2. Failure toward success.

The first leads to continued failure. It’s a daily ritual of failure with no path out.

The other leads to future success. How soon that success comes isn’t very predictable. A lot depends on what the individual is pursuing.  Some successes have finite windows of opportunity and others are only limited by the lifetime of the individual.

Everyone gets to make the choice of which type of failure they want to practice. A person can get up everyday and choose to sit around eating junk, binging on Netflix, and sleeping more; or they can get up and attack the day by practicing their craft, connecting with others, and taking risks.

Whichever path you choose, the good news is failure isn’t permanent – it’s a process. You can choose to move from one to the other at any time, so it never has to define us.

Let me encourage you to go with option #2 and start failing toward success.