July 2025

July Thought of the Month

"Don't look where you fell but where you slipped."

~ African proverb

Our lives are the sum of our responses to successes and failures. To achieve our goals we must take calculated risks, which means we will fail, likely more often than not. What we have to remember is that failing isn't a reflection of our character but a necessary opportunity to learn.

Think of any skill we learned from infancy to adulthood. It took time, determination, and the willingness to analyze what went wrong, try another method, again and again, in order figure out what worked. Shortcuting this process can delay or even derail our intended goals. If we focus on the failure when we slip up instead of looking back to determine the cause and ways around it, it is almost impossible to pull ourselves back up again.

Unfortunately, as we grow up, society teaches us to be too afraid of failure through social and financial punishment. Over time, we internalize the negative responses until taking risks is harder than maintaining the status quo. We need to go back to the mindset of childhood. Watch children learn to walk. They fall, they may cry, but that doesn't stop them. They always try again, using furniture to pull themselves up, leaning on walls, whatever it takes. And when they succeed, oh the joy on their faces.

So the next time you're confronting a failure, don't let it stop you. Remember that every slip has a cause. Figure out what that was, find ways to counter it, and keep going until you meet that challenge and again experience the joy of success.

[Thought and image design by Elaine C. Oldham]