Success is not final, failure is not fatal: This is one of the most compelling quotes about success and failure by Winston Churchill. The meaning of this quote – Success is not final, failure is not fatal can be explored in 2 parts – one about the meaning of success and failure. The other part is about the courage, perseverance and hard work to continue working on what we believe in.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts
Success is not final Meaning
The central part of this quote is in understanding the meaning of success itself. It makes us question whether success is just one event or a journey that takes us on a path of continued growth, progress and maybe even perfection. Measuring success by small goals is a narrow view of the meaning of success. If success is just about achieving a few goals, then it becomes a finite thing right? What happens after you succeed?
The meaning of success is not final tells us that success is a journey of moving from one point to another. These points should help us grow and keep moving forward in life. Our goals, aspirations and dreams keep growing, they keep changing. That’s purely to do with your internal growth as a person. As your own quality and perception of self changes, your goals should reflect this.
While you are in the pursuit of success and reaping its results, be mindful that you have many more goals to achieve. Your personality is far more capable than you perceive at any point in time. The whole point is in pushing forward and making yourself capable of achieving a superior quality of life and emotions.
So, as you rejoice, do remember that success is not final – Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts
Failure is not fatal – Winston Churchill
On the flip side of success, there is a caution against failure. But failure is not the ultimate result. It doesn’t question your capacity but gives you feedback on your approach. If you change your approach and keep moving, a solution will manifest for you. As Confucius says, our greatest glory is not in never failing, it is in rising every time we fall
Failure is not fatal – it gives us feedback to learn and grow from it. The path for success and failure sometimes are similar. We have to make sure that we constantly are careful and focus on moving forward in life with our values and character. Ultimately failure is only a learning opportunity. This is the undeniable reality – we will fail a few times before we succeed. Instead of letting this failure destroy us, the best solution is to find a way back to approach our goals. It won’t be easy but giving up sucks more than just the failure itself.
It is the courage that counts – Winston Churchill
In the end, it is not the number of failures or successes that count. It is the courage with which you followed your heart. You can use different words to describe this – perseverance, persistence and even motivation. Ultimately our results come from our actions. If you’re willing to work hard for what you truly want, the results will manifest themselves somehow. Nothing will ever happen magically. Sometimes, our hard work will find a better way than we had initially anticipated.
Trust yourself and move ahead. Success is only a few paces ahead of failure if you don’t just give up
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Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. It’s very true and I am sure that this has provided strength to generations to pick up their pieces and start again. I am sure though, how many souls calmed down on their ego after they tasted success!
Don’t you feel that success needs to be redefined and so does failure! Because it’s not the destination that defines success.
Imagine travelling from Bangalore to New Delhi by Indian Railways and the train leaves on time and arrives at New Delhi before the scheduled time. But you had noisy and nasty co passengers, the food was awfully tasteless, the air-conditioner worked only at times and there were mosquitoes to name a few. Would you term this as a successful journey?
Alternatively you could have a wonderful time with the passengers, making new friends but arriving a few hours late and reaching the meeting a bit late. Would you term this journey as a failure?
Life is a journey with beds at either ends. We win some and we lose some and that is statistically proven. …. Everyone need to relish it and give their 100% along the way without being bothered too much by the outcome.
A very sensible point Suman. I will try and respond in line to your comment to try and do better justice to it:
– Success needs to be redefined and so does failure
Fair point, I think our capability for success and failure keeps changing as we grow each day. The goal gets clearer as we reach closer. Sometimes we end up changing this goal and sometimes, it is taken over by a better one. It is almost as if both success and failure are ephemeral. Their presence is only at a certain point in time and if we are mature enough to treat these as incidents, we can look at creating further changes in them. I believe the most important point is to keep growing from every incident and expanding our capabilities. Without change or redefinition of these elements, success or failures mean very little as constant entities.
Perception of success and failure
– I like your elucidation through the example of a journey to bangalore from Delhi. The idea of success or failure is very much dependent on our feeling at that point in time. Although in this scenario, the end goal was to reach from a source to a destination, there is a significant impact of the type of journey we take and the emotions we go through with them. Perhaps in this example, there is a sense of success and failure in the feeling and the emotions we have through the process. It takes the focus from an objective definition of success or failure into a creative framework which can bring a lot of life into each of these experiences.
And yes, we need to relish each part of this journey or else the entire journey makes no sense. It is our own personal story to tell in the rich saga of our lives. If we can try and live each moment to the fullest, then the reward is the beautiful journey in itself.
Thank you for your thoughts, truly liberating.
Wonderful elucidation
Thank you Srinivas, this quote is one of my very favourite, it helps look at success and failure in a holistic manner
Beautiful post.
Thanks Pranita, it is always nice to be appreciated. I have a huge liking towards Winston Churchill’s collection of quotes. They have a sense of urge and rush to them. Would love to hear your thoughts on success, failure, perseverance and how they all tie together for you.