At some point in their careers, all your greatest heroes have failed. Every artist, politician, business guru, inventor and athlete must learn the pain of defeat in order to achieve success — and recognize it when it arrives.
But, of course, it’s easy to forget that when you’re engaged in your day-to-day grind. If you’ve been feeling less than inspired in your career lately, let these words of wisdom remind you that every path has its twists and turns.
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” – Maya Angelou
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell
“Failure is an amazing data point that tells you which direction not to go.” – Payal Kadakia
“Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” – J.K. Rowling
“If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.” – Mary Pickford
“We are all failures — at least the best of us are.” – J.M. Barrie
“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” – Johnny Cash
“Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” – Wilma Rudolph
“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” – Nelson Mandela
Sources: BrainyQuote, Goodreads, Forbes, Lifehack
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