Are you a confident person? The mind asked itself. I replied with an excited Yes!. The mind asked again, are you sure?. This time I thought for a while but again after a pause, I said yes.

Why was there a pause the second time?
We humans doubt our capabilities a lot. And what makes us doubt our strengths? A single failure sometimes makes you feel cringed. You feel you are worthless. Life before this failure seems all happy and confident. If you have been confident all your life, how can a single failure shake away the temple of your confidence.

You know the reason? I will tell you. We humans fear failure. A lot. The thought of failure often surpasses the strength of trying it. We are taught from childhood that if you try something and if it doesn’t see the light of success then it is a bad thing. Why can’t we accept and celebrate failures?Now I am not talking about any failure. I am talking about failure where you gave your best. You tried all your means. You presented the best version of yourself.

Recently, I was talking to one of senior colleagues. He has two beautiful daughters. On mundane days, our discussions mostly revolve around deep learning and the new world it is going to present. Today was different. It was a Friday evening.

We happen to discuss about life and the lessons it teaches us. How sports shape your character? How teamwork is not to be seen just on the field playing football. Teamwork is everywhere were more than one person is involved. A person having a team game on his resume gets a plus point according to him. I instantly realized the reason behind this. It is not just about playing in a team. If you play sports, the chances of you failing increases manifold. Every match is either a win or a loss (read failure).

It is important to embrace failure gracefully. That way, you won’t fear the thought of failure. A fear can haunt you only till you run away from it. The moment you face it, the fear will be gone. The fear doesn’t know what to do once you accept it.

Do you feel low when you fail at achieving a goal or fail at delivering a task? Of course! We all do. Imagine you are famished, the first first few swallows of food are divine, right? That’s what success tastes like. It is tantalizing. On the contrary, failure is bland. There is always a feeling of something missing.

Now, if you are a confident person, you would have developed your confidence from some of your accomplishments in the past. Some examples of such accomplishments could be- you stood first in your class, you presented in front of a large audience despite all the fear of stammering and dry mouth, you learnt something from scratch and you are very proud of it.

Now the above examples are personal. Try to remember the tasks and achievements you are proud of. This achievements could be as small as fixing your bathroom door without the help of a carpenter. You fixed it on your own. Know that feeling when you do something uncertain all on your own? If yes, I am talking about such feelings.

How does these thoughts make you feel like? You feel happy about it. A sense of pride erupts in your body. The neurons in your brain all fire at once like sky shot fireworks. Remember these accomplishments and make this your fuel to lighten you up. Fight back at failure. Roar back at life. You have all the ingredients for the perfect recipe to success.

Treat failure as another chapter of life. And life doesn’t end at just one chapter. It is a long story with indefinite number of pages. Your life can’t be written in one book or 10 books. It is a saga of millions of books. Don’t stop at that chapter. You are the author of the next chapter as well. Decide what you want it to be.

So next time, when failure knocks at your door and gets in your home, welcome it. Let is sit in your home for a weekend. Talk to it. Try to understand it. And then one afternoon gather your ingredients to prepare the delicious meal of success. Failure will never eat that lunch and will jump off your balcony. Now that the failure is gone. Begin the new chapter. You already know the title to that chapter—Believe in yourself.