#Motivation Monday – Share your Rejections
About 2 weeks ago, Saeed Jones, Buzzfeed journalist, started a movement on Twitter titled #ShareYourRejections. Within minutes the hashtag went viral; various people from various professions – writers, artists, entrepreneurs, engineers, and so on shared their individual stories of the ‘no’s they’d gotten on their career paths so far.
Sometimes in Nigeria, any form of failure is considered taboo; it’s a sentiment so deep that the very act of responding to a question with the statement: “I don’t know,” is a request to be labelled incompetent and unfit for promotions or positive recommendations.
Yet, if you examine the lives of most people, you’d see that failure is a necessary ingredient to success or innovation, even among people who seem to have had smooth trips to success. You can only see it’s beauty when you look through wider lens: feedback that drives growth. Nobody is born skillful, or perfect, we all grow by studying what to do and what not to do; failure is often the quickest way to learn the latter and adapt. Sure, learning from another’s experience can help avoid costly mistakes, and contains nuggets of wisdom, however expertly applying this wisdom in your life calls for experimentation and uncertainty, two ventures which often pass through failure of some sort before reaching the desired goal.
You probably don’t like your current life situation, you probably have regrets, and you probably wish you could go back in time and make different choices. Well, your “had I known” story doesn’t have to go to waste, because you know better now, you’ve learnt; your regrets might still sting, but they’re badges of honor in a way: proof that you survived a mistake, and are stronger, wiser, and ready to do better.
A note of warning however; while most of the more popular tweets came from people who eventually succeeded, many more came from people who never overcame these failures. Sometimes, failure might be a sign that you need to change paths, or that you need to let go, which is fine in itself; the point is, failure might feel bad, but it doesn’t have to be bad. It can be a learning process, a friend, an adviser and a source of innovation if you let it. So, take this week by storm, be strong and bold in the knowledge that every failure you might encounter, is a blessing slowly steering you to the life meant for you.
