Do you have sufficient faith to fail? Do you have sufficient faith to let others fail too? The ultimate personal failure is failure to act.  The ultimate personal failure is to act upon others in a manner that compromises their own ability to act and learn for themselves.

We learn in sacred places that a central purpose of mortal existence is to learn from experience. Yet a primary experience thief is our own fear of failure. Such fear paralyzes our willingness or ability to take risks necessary to learn and grow. Fear of failure impairs our ability to seek new and novel experience. At its most basic element, failure is an opportunity to learn from experience. While we all prefer success, some of our most important lessons learned are from mistakes or failures. Are you grateful for your failures? Can you “fail forward” or “fail successfully?”

Are you aware of people who have failed successfully or leveraged their failure to make improvements in their lives? Take a look at this video of successful people who learned from their failure:
Some actions intended to prevent failure often backfire and invite it. The most obvious example is failing to try and thus requiring external influence to bring about action. Such is the state of dependence, where one must be acted upon in order to change. When I first started my career, I was asked to take an assignment that would have been a real stretch for my family. For a variety of reasons, I resisted. My boss’s boss interviewed me and encouraged me to take the position. I was told that it would benefit me as well as our organization. I was skeptical. After a few days of pondering and praying with my wife, we felt that it might be wise to express interest in the position. By then, the position had been awarded to a colleague. I missed my opportunity. I failed. Yet that failure was an important lesson in learning to be ready when opportunity knocks. Especially unanticipated (and even unwanted) opportunities.

Another not so obvious example of behavior that undermines learning and success is taking action independent of another person’s will or interests. Acting upon another person without their cooperation or consent might get short term results, but rarely does it bring about sustained change or development in the other person. In fact, independent coercion most often invites resistance, no matter how noble the intention or cause. The most obvious and common example of this is in parenting. When I hover over my sons like a “helicopter parent,” assuming responsibility for their success or failure, I ultimately impoverish them of their own opportunities to learn and develop. My fear of their failure thwarts their own learning. Acting upon them independently may get the job done in the short run, but it ultimately may hinder my ultimate goal of fostering self-reliant sons. There is a big difference between “getting a job done” and getting the job done in parenting. Teaching principles and having a shared vision of what we are trying to accomplish has proven much more effective in helping them grow up and mature.

An over-concern with looking like a parental failure when children or others fail promotes over-involvement and enmeshment. In fact, taking action independent of another person’s personal growth often fosters dependency in them. This cycle of one person acting upon another and the other waiting to be acted upon is the definition of “co-dependency.”

So what is the answer to failing successfully? Take action. Just keep trying. Don’t wait to be acted upon. Don’t act upon others. Just do something. Consider the impact of your behavior on others, in other words have empathy. Consider what you want most rather than what you want in the moment. Then act in alignment with your most important long-term goals. This interdependent, action oriented approach promotes your success, as well as the success of others.

Interdependence, mutual growth, development, and learning from experience (even painful failures) are indeed things money can’t buy.