Failure is a detour, not a dead end street – Zig Zaglar

Failure is a detour: This is a beautiful Zig Ziglar quote about the meaning and impact of failure in our lives. Most times, we curse our failures as the worst thing that could have happened. If we look back at all the worst things that have happened in our lives, I’m sure they’ve all led you to where you are today. Some of these failures have been so powerful that they’ve gone on to define the wonderful life that we lead today.

There are of course challenges, but this quote challenges your view by asking or even telling – Failure is a detour. I’m not entirely sure that I’d treat failure as a distraction. At best, it is a feedback and learning opportunity. But let’s try and understand more about the meaning of this quote on failure by Zig Ziglar.

Failure is a detour, not a dead end street

Source: Zig Ziglar Quotes

To delve deeper into this quote, I’d encourage you to have an open mind and embrace your failure as an outcome. If it is something that’s bothering you continually, step away from it and look at it from a distance. This objective view helps you to frame a response to process your failure.

Failure is a detour, not a dead end street meaning

What does failure really mean? From an objective point of view, it is just an outcome. It has no other meaning associated with it.

However, it is not failure that hurts us the most. It is the association with that failure. The impact of a failure is more on our plans, ego, social life and all the various connections we let it associate to.

To be honest, if I look at it in a dispassionate manner, it is as simple as something not working out. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you are bad at something. It also doesn’t mean that things will never work for you because you are incapable.

Failure neither has the capacity nor interest to make a judgement on you or me. It is all our doing. On that note, what does failure really mean?

What does this failure mean?

Every outcome needs a debrief. We have heard innumerable quotes that regard failure as a mere outcome. Some of them say that it is a demand for change in approach. Zig Ziglar says – failure is a detour. It is only us who tend to make it a dead-end street sometimes and suffer a little more than necessary. Instead, it can be treated as a learning opportunity.

Naturally, it comes down to us to analyse what the unfavourable outcome really means. If we base it back to our initial discussions – an emotion is nothing but a call for action. A failure merely says that either your approach, timing or strategy was wrong. You just have to find a way to make it work.

Of course, there is always a question of whether something is really worth doing or offering another approach. Your heart is always the best judge of that. For the scope of this discussion, I will refrain to the impact of this failure and a set goal.

Failure as a dead end vs call for action

The call for action in this circumstance is mere, X didn’t work. If you badly need it, you got to find a different way. Yes, so much time and emotion is lost in the process. I won’t justify this by saying that you learnt so much. Quite honestly, I don’t really care about that at the moment.

Failures hurt and that’s the bottom line. If I want the result, I need to find a way to make things happen. This is not about determination or the philosophical feel-good factor. The reality is – if you and I still want the result, we will have to fight and find a way for it. We can’t simply accept failure as a dead end and give in. A failure is a detour approach that gives me a better chance at getting the results I really want.

How can we use this Failure?

Everything that comes our way is a pawn in our big picture. We can choose to use it that way or not, but it is an occurrence.

I recall some tenets of the book – Connecting the dots. Sometimes we have to go a little further, only then does the past make a bit of sense. We can’t always have all the answers no matter how much we would like to.

If we flip the question over its head, we need to come up with a smarter approach. There is an outcome in front of us. It is a different matter that we don’t like. But how can we use it so that it gives us what we want?

If the result is that important to you and me, does this outcome give me an indicator as to how to get to my results? Is there a way I can use this failure as a detour instead of worrying sick about it?

Failure in the big picture

After all, it is a small thing. I loved reading the book – Don’t sweat the small stuff, it is all small stuff. It provides a wonderful perspective about how we need to look at events. If we want, we can take this extremely seriously and feel bad for ourselves. Or, we could have a sense of humour and find a way to quickly move forward.

After all,”A man who thinks more than necessary, suffers more than necessary”. It is indeed a great skill to look at things the way they are. Even more important is a skill to distance ourselves from a situation so that we can look at the big picture and make things work for us.

It certainly boils back to the point of the greatest weapon against stress – working on the problem than working in the problem.