Many people get out of focus when they fail. I remember the first time I got glasses and put them on, I never knew how out of focus I had become. Things were crystal clear, and I could actually see vibrant colors, it was amazing! What happens when we fail is that we begin to see everything through the lens of that failure. Instead of seeing possibilities, we see a blurry road ahead. It seems impossible to know what to do when you have failed at something. However, we need to regain our focus when we fail. When our failure drops us our vision can get jared out of focus.

Remember the old transparency machines from school? Before the days when you hire projector and computers you had to use the transparency machines with transparency paper that you could write on. When you would turn on the machine you had to focus the lens in on the image. I will always remember the clarity of the image coming into focus as someone would turn the focus wheel during my early school days. Just like the transparency machine had to get into focus so we need to refocus our life when we fall down. We have to see our failure through the right eyes. Many people see their failure as a bad thing. They look at failure as a negative. Now understand I am not talking about moral failure, that is something we always want to avoid at all cost, rather I am talking about failing and missing the mark with life circumstances we face each day. The reality is that we need to fail in order to grow.

Childhood behavioral studies have shown us that a child only learns to walk because they have failed to walk over and over.  Without the failure of falling they will never learn how to gain their balance. Now we could try to avoid their failure and tell a child over and over how the muscle dexterity works, how to move the knee cap in the proper direction, etc… but that will not make sense to them? A child learns to walk because they are learning how not to walk. After so many lessons on how not to walk they eventually begin to understand how to walk. It is their failure that causes them to succeed.

We need to get focus on our failure. Failure is not fatal unless we allow it to be. Failure is freeing if we view it the right way. It is our response to failure that determines our ability to succeed. We can be afraid of failure, or embrace failure depending on where our focus is. If we focus on the negative, concerning failure, we will run from failure. However, if we view failure in a positive way, we will learn more from it than we think. It’s all about focus and perspective. When you fail, understand that your outlook must get back into focus. We have to see failure as a tool that can get us to where we need to be. So let your outlook about failure change from a negative to a positive. Get into focus and understand that failure can be the greatest thing that has happened to you. Failure is great!