Yesterday was a huge day for me. My oldest child, Olivia, who’s 6, learned to ride her bike without training wheels.
The process was fascinating and, as a mother, I couldn’t be prouder.
I actually can’t stop thinking about it… the whole process of it inspired this post about failing forward.
Are you familiar with the term failing forward? If not, let me explain.
This is a term we use a lot in our industry and I think as an entrepreneur it’s something we all do (if we’re committed to succeeding), and it certainly helps to understand the concept.
I took a video of my daughter learning to ride her bike last night (it’s posted below) and it really does a great job of demonstrating the failing forward concept.
You see, if you want to accomplish great things in life it requires getting out of your comfort zone, and it definitely requires failing. As we ‘fail’, we move forward.
Think about the fact that it took Thomas Edison more than 10,000 attempts to invent the light bulb.
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ~ Thomas Edison
In order to move forward in our lives, we need to fall down a few times along the way. Like Olivia in this video, or a baby that’s learning to walk, sometimes moving forward requires ‘failing forward’ and getting a few bumps and bruises as we learn what we need to learn to succeed.
Nobody wakes up one morning and has all of the answers… we need to learn by trial and error, by failing forward. Those that simply aren’t willing to fail are not the people that will never accomplish great feats in their lifetime.
When I was a kid, I was a gymnast. I wanted to be a competitive gymnast and was willing to do what I had to do to make it onto the best team in the state. I ended up accomplishing this, and when I was watching Olivia fall down countless times on the pavement last night, I was remembering how many times I got injured when I was trying to learn new stunts in gymnastics. In some ways it seems absurd now when I think about the torture I put my body through. But you simply cannot learn to do a technical gymnastic-type stunt on the first try. Sometimes it takes falling on your head about 100 times before you even start to grasp the feeling needed to succeed. Sometimes it means breaking an arm, pulling a muscle, spraining an ankle.
The point here is, if you’re determined enough, and you’re willing to ‘fail forward’, you will eventually aquire the skills and knowledge needed to make progress.
The only reason people don’t succeed in creating the lives of their dreams is because they give up. They’re simply not willing to fail in order to get to where they want to be, to fail forward.
Watch this quick video of Olivia so beautifully demonstrating the failing forward concept:
♫ There’s always gonna be another mountan. I’m always gonna wanna make it move…♫
This is the story of my life. I love moving mountains, and I’m willing to get a few injuries along the way. It certainly keeps life interesting. 🙂
Are you ready/willing to fail forward? Please share your experiences with failing forward below, or what you now see that there is for you to do to move mountains in your life.
And please feel free to pass this along to your friends and followers… who knows who you might inspire today.
To your enormous success,
Comments
Amy,
Thanks for sharing the proud inspirational moment with your daughter learning to ride her bike.
Congratulations for all of your efforts,
Don
Thanks so much, Don. It was certainly a proud moment. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by! xo-A
Amy great post! We can learn a lot from our kids. Our kids aren’t afraid of whose watching or if they fail. Somewhere along life we’ve learned to get in our own way.
I hear you, Kyle! Kids are truly amazing and some of the best teachers I know of, in so many ways. Thanks for visitng. 🙂
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