“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

—Confucius

When looking at “successful” people, it’s easy to only pay attention to the wins, and forget about the losses. Take Cy Young, for instance, the famous baseball pitcher who holds the record for career wins. Did you know he also has more career losses than any other player in MLB history?

Everyone, even the most “successful,” will have failures in life. Everyone loses or missteps at one time or another. That’s a given. The real issue is what you’ll choose to do after you hit the ground. Will you pick yourself up? Will you try again? Will you learn from the experience, and use those (costly) lessons the next time around?

Failure today doesn’t disqualify you from success tomorrow. In fact, the lessons you learn from failure can later be the keys to your success. Failure can show you where you need more training. Or it can highlight the necessity of changing your course.

Failure is never final if you choose to pick yourself up and continue forward. It only becomes final when you choose not to get up and try again.