When’s the last time you thought about how you measure your life and life experiences?

It can be incredibly beneficial to take a moment to reflect on what we’re aiming for in our lives and how we critically think about these metrics. If I’m honest, I think we are often raised to believe that someone generally succeeds or fails at something, but we don’t put language often to someone in the “in-between” of the two. We are quick to say “They did great” or “It didn’t go so well,” but we often don’t say “They were learning” or “This was their first time trying it.”

I’m trying to improve my “black or white” thinking across all areas of life, which means recognizing and celebrating the small wins in between what I think (or society thinks) are victories or failures. A big part of this work has led me to analyzing what success and failure look like in my life, and because I’ve become more aware of this in my life, I thought more people could relate, so I wanted to share what I’ve learned.

Although I always believed that success was equivalent with a type of career, salary, or family life – and that failure was the lack of those things – I’ve realized that every person measures these in their own way. In reality, they are both subjective and neutral terms, and should be defined by each person for themselves.

This year, I’ve been trying to think about success as having enough – whatever that means to me in each season of life. Right now, it means believing that I have enough material things (in reality, I have more than what I need to survive), I make enough money for what I need, and I have enough time in the day to get things done. Prior to the last few months, I never really thought about what “enough” meant to me, let alone try to equate it to what success looks like in my life. Now that I’ve put this language to it, I feel much lighter and more comfortable. I don’t find myself consistently reaching higher or wanting more just because – I am being more thoughtful about what I really want or need.

Just as importantly as defining your own success, I would argue that we need to spend more time considering and correcting how we view failure in our lives.

Typically when we hear “failure,” we think of it being negative or the opposite of success. It seems like the end of the road for something. But what if we changed how we think of failure to be more just one step in the process of growth or innovation? We can’t get better unless we try things differently, and quite frankly, if we don’t mess up as we’re trying to improve, we might not be trying very hard.

I often get asked what I look for in hiring candidates. My answer always includes someone’s willingness to learn, no matter their previous experience level. You can teach someone new skills and knowledge, but only if they want to learn it, so it’s the most important skill or attitude someone can bring to the table. If you’re wondering what will allow you to have a deeper impact, consider how you are learning new things, taking risks, and seeing everything as a learning opportunity…failure included.

Beyond the workplace, accepting failure as part of the growing process can be instrumental to developing more meaningful, purposeful lives and relationships. If we view something not working out as an expectation rather than a “traumatic event that says something about our worth,” we could continue to learn and grow and move on more quickly. We could keep trying things and lead to greater innovation. We could repair our relationships more quickly. If we stop making failure about us and about the fact that we’re just trying something new and it didn’t work out, life would improve for us.

One of my favorite authors and speakers, Simon Sinek, has a great message about failure being synonymous with “falling.” When I speak about teamwork, I show this video to emphasize how important a failure is to someone’s willingness to learn and grow. His comparison of failure to cancer is thought-provoking and deserves a couple minutes of your attention today.

Listen to this quick message, and then consider the following questions:

• What does success mean in my work life? In my personal life? How would I describe what that looks like?
• What are the first three words that come to mind when I think of failure?
• What one phrase or mantra can I tell myself when I mess something up to improve my relationship with failure?
• What is one thing in your life that has gotten better because of taking a risk, trying something new, or fixing a mistake?