No one wants to fail.  In fact, most people take it personally when they do. They’re embarrassed, especially if the failure was a public one.  

Some people are so afraid of failure that they never even try something new or are very, very hesitant to follow their dreams.  What if they do and fail?  Maybe their dreams were just never meant to be and they’ve wasted their lives in pursuit of something that’s always going to be out of reach!

But these fears are often irrational, especially when you examine failure itself.  In many cases, it’s not a reflection of you at all. Those who are really successful will actually tell you that failure is a good thing and that, in fact, it’s absolutely necessary if you ever want to succeed!

Here are 6 reasons why you might want to start welcoming failure instead of trying to distance yourself from it:

1. If you never fail, it means you never tried

Failure may be a sign that you tried and didn’t achieve success, that’s true, but it’s also a sign that you tried.  There are many people out there who are so afraid to fail that they never make an attempt.  They let their dreams go because they just don’t think they could ever achieve them, so what’s the point?  Why fail since that means the end of the dream?

The thing is, though, that failing doesn’t have to mean the end of the dream.  It simply means you have to get back up, adjust your game plan, and try again.  Sure, maybe you fail several times, but each time you’ll learn something.

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg

2. Each failure gets you closer to success

That leads into the second reason why failure can be good: each time you fail, you’re getting a little closer to success.  Failure brings with it lessons, and if you learn with each failure and apply what you’ve learned to your next attempt, you’ll be able to get that much closer.  Who knows, that next attempt may be the one that succeeds, and if it’s not, you’ve learned and grown in yet another way that you wouldn’t have if you’d given up.

3. Would you rather fail or regret not trying?

Along those same lines, if you never try, you may later feel something even worse than failure, regret.  If you give up now, you may regret it for the rest of your life.  Whatever led to your decision to accept failure, it’s not worth the regret you’ll feel later.  If you keep at it, you’ll not only eventually succeed and avoid regret, you’ll find that success is that much sweeter because it took a lot of work.  Instead of failure and regret, you’ll have success and pride in yourself and what you’ve accomplished.

4. You learn life lessons

In addition to learning something about your approach to your goal, failure can also teach you life lessons that you wouldn’t learn any other way.  These life lessons help you grow as a person.  They can teach things like empathy, understanding, and compassion.

Most successful people didn’t become successful overnight.  They had to work hard at it, and they had to fail multiple times.  This is one of the main points you might hear a motivational speaker hit on over and over.

There’s a reason why these speakers are so popular, too—they speak the truth when it comes to failure, and they can help people see that it’s not a horrible thing.  They also help keep us going. If they can overcome every failure and reach success, we can, too!

5. Failure tests your dreams

If you fail and find that giving up isn’t really that big of a deal, chances are you weren’t invested in that dream as much as you initially thought you were.  Failure can show you what you really love and what you only thought you did.  If you’re determined to succeed no matter how many times you fail, then you’ve found something you truly love and truly want in life.

This is especially true if you look at why you failed and realized it was because you simply didn’t really want it bad enough.  Maybe you didn’t put all of your energy into it, or maybe you can pinpoint the place where you realized this dream wasn’t yours.

That’s okay.  That’s just failure teaching you one of those life lessons that can’t be learned any other way.  It’s also likely that this failure will open your eyes to what you really are passionate about, and that’s not a failure at all!

“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.” – Oprah Winfrey

6. Success and failure are not opposites

So many people think that success and failure are two sides of the same coin, but they’re not.  Instead, failure is more like the road to success.  You don’t toss the coin and hope it lands on success—you walk down the path that failure can show you.  When you hit a roadblock, sure you may stumble for a moment, but then you learn how to overcome that roadblock and move on to the next one.  Eventually, you’ll learn everything you need to in order to make your dreams come true, and you’ll be that much stronger thanks to those lessons.

Do you agree that failure isn’t really a bad thing?  How do you see failure, and what have you learned from failing?  Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!