Success!

     The instruction that “Failure is not an Option” was certainly motivating for the engineers figuring out a solution to the Apollo 13 malfunction in April of 1970; it is not a motto for all of life. More here: 
     A few years later, when I was in my twenties I heard the saying “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” and while I have remembered it, and heard it repeated, I have not always lived as though it is true. I am a list-maker. Having a shopping list in front of me saves me from forgetting items, and having a to-do list lets me feel accomplished as I cross things off. I have never made a LifePlan that directs my decision making as a daily practice.
I see the process of life as an unfolding, including failures on the way to success. I often tell clients that just as we cannot learn to ride a bicycle without first wobbling, so we must allow ourselves time and experimentation with all aspects of life.
  Children of the 1990s are particularly prone to insecurity and anxiety about  achieving instant success. Many have learnt that failure is shameful and to be avoided, and as a result they are fearful about trying new activities, or even studying in new fields.
  I reject any system that beats the “failure is not an option” drum. There is no perfection in the physical world. We are here in the human realm in order to experience the contrasts of life, and to grow from them.
Gary Zukav calls this human experience the ‘Earth School’. We have chosen to attend in order to promote our expansion, to learn those things which cannot be found in any other dimension. 
Martin Luther is credited with saying “..Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars” and it is true that light requires darkness in order to be appreciated. Likewise success would be hollow and monochromatic without failure. 
Reframing our response to failure is the start of a new path to success.
In the 1990s I belonged to a writing group in Nova Scotia. At one time we began competing with each other, to see who could collect the most rejection slips from publishers. 
We all increased the number of pieces we submitted to various magazines and editors, and we all collected rejections. As a side effect of this activity, several of us had writing accepted, and were published and paid for our work. When the rejections became desirable, and we stopped avoiding them, we found more success than we could have imagined.
I have a colleague with a similar story. As part of a class she was taking, she was encouraged to collect refusals. What would you ask for if the “no” did not matter? Students asked for jobs they would never have dared to apply for; they sought mentorships that seemed beyond them; they were bold in asking experts for help. As a group they collected refusals, and many many individuals received acceptances and heard the word ‘yes’. This occurred only because they were willing to risk failure.

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