Dec
05

8 Signs that You Are Not Failing Enough

Categories:

Fear,
Perspective

December 5, 2007

My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet.
-Mahatma Gandhi

8 Signs that You are Not Failing Enough

Failure and success go hand-in-hand. Like most people, risking failure doesn’t come naturally to me. Yet it has never lead to regret. In fact, all significant accomplishments in my life have come from taking risks and often failing.

Here are the warning signs of a lack of failure:

Stability – This sounds great, and it is nice to enjoy peace and stability. But, it can be dangerous when it lulls us into stagnation. If nothing changes, nothing changes.
Comfort – Growth and change are difficult to achieve without leaving our comfort zone every once in a while.
Boredom.
Depression.
Discouragement – Ironically, failing to fail can be at least as discouraging as trying and failing.
Lack of Fear.
You are an expert at everything you do.
Everyone agrees with you.

Failure and Success in My Life

Leaving my career working with troubled youth to attend college was a huge risk leading to several years of near-poverty, debt accumulation, social deprivation and hard work but left me with some of my life’s greatest memories, a degree, work experience and life lessons that have lead to a life I hadn’t even imagined previously.

Several months ago, my wife and I left stable and well-paying jobs to work for ourselves. After a couple months of frugality, wondering if our mortgage was going to be paid and a few failed projects, we are now meeting our previous income level and are looking at continued growth with a flexible, enjoyable career.

Fear of failure is the most powerful obstacle to success and fuel for procrastination. Accept failure once in a while and a world of possibilities opens up to you.

This post is a part of a series on Overcoming Procrastination.

About the author

Danny

I am Danny Kohn, writer and designer for this site and owner, software engineer and consultant for Inspirations Software Design. My three greatest passions in life are sharing time with my family, software design and sharing inspiration with others. I have the incredible privilege of being able to spend a significant amount of time every day doing each of those three things. I am a single father of Tristen, our 6 year old son. It has been such an incredible joy to watch him grow up and learn so much. Everything he does and says overwhelms me with adoration. We have a wonderful evening ritual of reading books together in a beanbag chair. Nearly every night, we have a laughing attack together. I smile and giggle constantly in his presence and feel truly inspired.

Permanent link to this article: http://beinspiredeveryday.com/2007/12/05/8-signs-that-you-are-not-failing-enough/

2 comments

AuthorMomWithDogs says:

December 5, 2007 at 11:30 am (UTC -5 )

Reply

I just gotta say that your writing does a great job of living up to your blog’s title. I enjoy reading everyday.
Thank you.
Danny says:

December 5, 2007 at 12:15 pm (UTC -5 )

Reply

Thank you so much, Karen. Your comment brightened up my day!