Failure will never overtake me – Og Mandino

Failure will never overtake me: A beautiful and bold statement by Og Mandino but talks about the power of the human spirit and determination. In this article, we talk about the meaning of this quote, how failures impact us and the best way and mental attitude to deal with these failures.

The first course of action is to treat failures at their face value and use them as feedback to learn. Failure is not all about feeling bad for the outcome but about using it to succeed. You can find an extension of this at How to begin again after failure? Ultimately failure and success are outcomes. The best way to deal with them is to find opportunities. And stand tall in front of failure and say – Failure will never overtake me.

Meaning – Failure will never overtake me

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough - Og Mandino
Determination: Failure will never overtake me – Og Mandino

What is the meaning of failure will overtake me? Is it just a bold statement or does it have anything to offer for our life? The first thing that comes to mind is the motivational value of this quote. But the meaning is more than a mere adrenaline rush.

Learning from Failure and Experience: Experience has a beautiful way of teaching certain lessons. This one, in particular, has been a beautiful one. Failure is often overrated as a huge demon to avoid. However, there is no success without failure. Instead of being afraid of it, you should think of failure as a common companion.

Worry and Fear of Failure: The meaning of this phrase – failure will never overtake me doesn’t lie in being overwhelmed with failure. Instead, you have to find strategies to work away from failure and create a journey for success. If you let failure or any other external events dictate your life, then you’re starting a weak journey.

Driven by vision and determination

While talking about failure, you need to understand the power of your dream. It has a huge potential to drive you beyond these limitations to focus you back on priorities. When we start towards a goal, there is a huge amount of energy in determination and the will to succeed.

  • We create dreams around the success of these goals and get thoroughly excited by them.
  • Naturally, this acts as a motivator and we give in everything we have towards this goal. If you’re lucky, you’ll feel every fibre of your body move towards this goal and get excited by it.
  • Failures have been bad, but it is those moments that tend to test you about your true aspirations. I’ve changed some goals through my journey – some because my priorities changed and some others because it just didn’t seem to make any sense

All through the process, c it is very important to realise that your dreams and visions are more important than limitations.

Focusing your vision on your passion and goals

Most often the society around us is trained to associate determination with a single goal or an achievement. If I look back now, none of these singular achievements has been the single differentiator.

  • As a whole, it has been a combination of different successes and failures. Each one of these has had a beautiful impact to play. Disappointments have been bad, but they haven’t really challenged the determination and will to make a difference.
  • It would be wrong to fixate success and failure on a singular goal. Our life certainly is full of opportunities, diversity and variety in goals and possibilities. The single most important point is to make sure that we grow at each and every experience.
  • This doesn’t mean that we should be ok with our failures and give up these goals at ease. Strength and determination are beautiful emotions to hold on to. They can serve your character and personal growth really well if you let them. It is very easy to wallow in failure and feel helpless. At times, you may even feel like a victim. But nothing is ever going to change unless you take charge and decide to make a change that will impact you.

“Failure Will Never Overtake Me If My Determination To Succeed Is Strong Enough.”

Og Mandino

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Vinay Nagaraju

Product Director with 10+ years in leadership roles - team building, product strategy, coaching and mentoring are a part of my everyday responsibilities. I write about motivational words that inspire us and shape our thinking and help us go beyond these thoughts to find what our minds are telling us and evolve.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. sumandray

    A lot depend on whats at stake….. failure at times could be devastating!!

    1. Vinay Nagaraju

      It is. They have an amazing tendency to bring us down to our knees and also an amazing strength in the sense that they can awaken the right spirit. Having been through a couple of challenging ones, it always amazes me that we have the strength we need within us. There is a great piece of work to be done in bringing it out but nevertheless the source is always within us which is a beautiful realisation on its own.

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