A few months back, Graham, my two-year-old, touched the stove. It wasn’t too bad. He’s alright. But it was enough to leave an impression on him. Now he knows: the stove is hot.
I’m 28 years older than Graham. And I’m just now starting to get my head around this lesson.
Every day I go out into the world. I have a job. I have a boss. I have bills and a mortgage. And every day, I have at least one failure.
I forgot to add a line item on that budget, or I snapped at my boss, or I forgot to set up auto-pay. I do the wrong thing and it hurts.
The lesson I’m learning is this: there are two ways to handle failure. I can either pull back and never risk the burn again.
Or, I can mark that bad approach off the list and look for a better one. Graham might still reach for something near the stove, but he sure won’t be touching the burner in the process.
The lesson is this: failure is a direction, not a destination.
The people who make it aren’t the ones who never failed, they’re the ones who didn’t stop when they failed.
This is post is part of a series on Success Habits.
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