Is failure the first step to success?

Surfing around on LinkedIn's Q&A board last night, a colleague of mine posed the question above. The answers he is receiving are really interesting, but I'm even more intrigued by the question itself: Is failure the first step to success?

I love the possibility that exists in this question. I think it all depends on who you are and how you define success. I once asked a client of mine what preconceived notions he had about failure, what judgments he held about it. He gave me a tremendously confident answer, saying that he believed failure was necessary to achieve success, was necessarily on the path to success, was to be expected if one were striving for success.

Totally true, I think. But...

What we discovered after a while is a certain pattern that he had. This pattern was sabotaging his efforts at success since he had internalized that failure was necessary for success. So what he had become successful at was indeed failure. He had several forays into different businesses that had all resulted in some form of failure rather than success. So, since it's natural to want to avoid failure (sometimes at all costs, meaning we never get off the couch and even try to do something we dream of), it is in some sense liberating and powerful to accept failure as part of the process that leads to/IS success. But we have to be careful that we don't set our focus on the actual failure, because if we do, that's exactly what we'll get.

My husband (then boyfriend, back in the day) said the most brilliant thing to me one day while we were mountain biking in the blazing summer heat in the North Georgia mountains. I was suffering from the heat and the exertion of the trail that was getting more and more technical as it climbed up what seemed to me thousands of feet. Then, as we started going downhill, I got scared I was going to crash as I barrelled down a narrow single-track that went between trees very close to the path and over rocks that jutted up everywhere. He told me: "Whatever you do, don't look at the rocks you're scared you're going to hit, because you will. Instead, focus on where you want to go, and your bike will follow where you look." That advice has stayed with me all these years, and makes so much sense to me in business. Are you focused on success, or are you focused on failure? Wherever your gazes lies, so follows your destiny.

Oh, those cycles

I've been paying a lot of attention to cycles lately.

No doubt this is related to Spring finally arriving here in Windsor after a long, grey, cold Winter. Now as I look out my window, I see green starting to blanket every flat surface. I'm enamored when I spot a mother goose walking along the side of an old country road with a row of fuzzy goslings quickly following her. The sun (oh yes, finally remembered the name of that large yellow thing in the sky that has been so long absent...) is up there, beaming down, and I have no question in my mind why ancient peoples (and perhaps modern ones, too) worship it.

I notice my moods and energy levels are often in synch with the seasons. I fight being slow, down and stuck in the Winter. I am bursting with energy and joy in the Spring. I am satisfied, easy-going in the Summer. And the quick chill in the Fall air gets me focused and poised for action.

For a long time I simply noticed this pattern, this cycle that I share with the seasons. But lately I've realized that this pattern has become a habit, one I fall victim to when I'm not paying attention. I can blame my feeling of powerlessness on the obvious circumstance of bad, frigid weather, or I can justify not getting things done because of the magnet of warm weather that keeps me outside all day long. This is a habit I've grown comfortable with, one I accept because it makes sense to me.

Spring being the season of rebirth and renewal, I think it's time to let go of this predictable cycle that zaps my power, occasionally for months at a time. Why not be powerful and purposeful every season, every month, everyday? With all this extra energy I have right now, I have begun building some support structures to keep me focused on what I want. I've started an amazing new coaching program with Rhonda Hess, founder of prosperouscoach.com. With her fabulous support, I'm finally taking the steps to grow my business while doing less work. I'm taking time each day to center on my goals and biggest commitments. And I'm learning (thanks to flylady.com) to take only Baby Steps in that direction, forsaking my "all or nothing" attitude that often gets me stuck in the mud.

Yay, Spring...