Hey Warrior...

What does it mean to fail? We hear the good warm and fuzzies that say "Failure is just not getting back up" or something like that. I will say, that is true. But for many of us, failure becomes something so much more. It becomes our identity.

Have you ever failed? Have you ever just dropped the ball? Ever messed up so badly that it cost you something? Maybe even cost you everything? Well, even if that is the case in your life, it does not mean that you are now identified as a failure. Failure simply means a lack of success. It is literally a thing (or lack thereof), it is not an adjective...it is a noun. Remember elementary school when we were learning about sentence structure and we had to memorize that nouns were either a class of person, a place, or a thing?! In the same way, we learned that an adjective is a word or phrase naming an attribute, added to, or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it.

With that in mind, what would it look like in our lives if we stopped using our failures completely out of context? If failures are things, then let them be a thing. Let them be something that we did (or will do) and be done with it. The temptation to ascribe failure to me as a person undercuts everything about me that is found in my character...and failure is not a character trait.

So, did you fail? OK. Own it, put that thing in its place, learn whatever lesson needs to be learned, and get back up. Get help if need be. Use the things that really do describe who you are as a person to be the fuel that fuels you to face things like failure with courage and as opportunities.

You may have failed. And if you're like me, you may have failed a lot. But, just because you did a thing, it does not make you that thing. Just like buying a car does not make you a vehicle. It makes you a vehicle owner. Just like failure makes you an owner of what may be a great lesson that you needed to learn so that you can exponentially grow in ways that not having failed would have never allowed.

JOURNAL: Hit the "Take a Note" button on this page and write out your thoughts and use these questions as a guide.

+ What do I feel after reading this?

+ What can I do about it?