Failure: What Not Making The Olympics Taught Me

Failure is a scary word to many youth and adults alike. However, the top achievers in the world, and some of the happiest people as well, know that failure is simply part of the process. However, the stigma of failure, especially public failure, is very real. Because we are often taught to attach our identities to our goals from a young age, and are rewarded in school and sport on results rather than on effort, we are setting ourselves up to fail, literally. Many top athletes and CEOs are coming forward to speak about their mental health, and how this need for perfection and achievement, or worry of future failure, has led to anything but happiness. But what if we could find freedom in failure? To embrace it? To learn to embrace failure we need to flip the concept on its head. What if we could never fail again simply by looking at failure through a different lens? By changing the way we look at goals, we can begin to find enjoyment in the process of becoming our best selves.