Skip to main content

Natural Awakenings Lehigh Valley

What if there is no such thing as failure?

Dr. D Rodger ND, MBA

If you take risks, you’re going to be wrong as much as you’re going to be right; that is the pain of life and the joy of life.

One of the most common questions asked is, how can I overcome fear and take a chance?
A friend couldn’t decide whether to take a job in a new city. It was a good job, 
but it would require him to leave his life-long home. Everyone fears change and the risks it carries, but everything significant that I’ve ever experienced has involved change. When we stay with the familiar, just because it is familiar, we are responding to a fear of failure that doesn’t support our growth.

Consider this - what if there is no such thing as failure? Failing is a judgment that we humans place on a given action. Rather than judging, substitute this attitude: you cannot fail, you can only produce results. en the most important question to ask yourself is what do you do with the results you produce? It’s better to jump in and expe- rience life than to stand on the sidelines fearing that something might go wrong.

As an infant, before you were ever subjected to the conditioning that leads you away from risks and fear of failing, your nature was programmed to learn how to walk. For a while you just laid down, then your nature said, “Sit,” and you did. Then your nature commanded, “Crawl,” and you obeyed. Eventually your nature said, “Stand up on two feet, balance yourself, and move in an upright position”.

The first time you made the effort, you fell down and returned to crawling. But your nature wouldn’t let you stay satisfied with crawling and you ignored your fears and the results you had produced and you stood up again. Eventually your nature won out and you walked upright. What if you had succeeded in resisting your natural programming? You would still be crawling on all fours, not knowing the advantages of an upright life!

Know in your heart that you have never failed at anything and you never will. What might be judged as errors or mistakes are the very stuff of growth.


Refuse to use the term “failure” about yourself or about anyone else. When you take a chance and things don’t go as planned, you didn’t fail, you only produced a result.
Feel gratitude for the life-enhancing opportunity to learn and grow from those results.

Dr. D Rodger ND, MBA