It wasn’t that long ago that my youngest grandson learned to walk. I remember how he would walk a little, fall down, cry a little, get back up, walk some more–over and over again. He got frustrated but he wasn’t willing to totally give up and stop trying to learn to walk. Today he is in constant motion and runs more than he walks. He succeeded in reaching his goal and then some.
It seems that young children are much more willing to try something and fail. They don’t beat themselves up about it; they just keep on trying until they succeed or they decide that they’d rather learn to do something else. They believe that they will be able to do something and that they may have to work to hard to be able to do so. The possibility of permanent failure doesn’t usually cross their minds.
Why can’t we be that way as adults? Somewhere along the way in life we become afraid of failure and what it represents. We focus on the failure not on the fact that it is a temporary obstacle on the road to success. I’m as guilty of this as the next person.
What if we adults could just learn to fail a little, cry a little, and then get up and try again until we’re successful or decide we want to do something else instead? Take some time today to watch a young child and see how they learn to do something new. I guarantee it will be an eye-opening experience for you.
