“I’ve been failing forward.”
So said one of my yoga teachers at a what I think was a turning point in her entrepreneurial journey.
I met her as she was gaining traction outside of the realm of “just another Ashtanga Yoga teacher” because she was developing her USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
Yoga is often hailed as a cure all, and whatever problem you have, yoga is going to fix it.
This is nonsense.
Asia had studied with non yoga experts, modifying her practice and teaching so that she could help her students discover their yoga, not just do her yoga.
The work that built up to this point seemed to coalesce and her business began to soar, but it was years of “failing forward.”
THIS is learning to embrace failure.
THIS is what I’ve been doing for the last seven years.
And it is only now, after all those years of failure, that I am finally beginning to see the shape of my future.
The efforts I’ve put in have slowly built up my resilience to the point where failure doesn’t really sting, much less stop me.
I’ve slogged through enough false starts that I’m finally finding ones with traction.
I’ve followed enough people that I’ve learned who and what works for me to finally succeed.
In the past I lost sleep over the failures, the money invested with no quantifiable return, the time and energy wasted. I would beat myself up because I haven’t seen progress.
Now, I go to bed at night optimistic and confident that, in the words of Churchill, while I may not be at the beginning of the end, at least I may be at the end of the beginning.
