Thomas Edison once said, “Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.” The point of his comment is shared by many highly-motivated, successful people: Most human growth and learning occurs when one is uncomfortable. This may have resulted from a state of confusion, an error in judgment or a failure to achieve a goal. Just as you toss and turn in bed when you are uncomfortable, these individuals search for new answers, new meanings when realizing that they have not achieved a desired outcome.
<?xml:namespace prefix = o /> While this unorthodox strategy seems to work well in motivating some, the vast majority of people experience “failure” quite differently. The idea conjures up mental pictures and feelings of tragedy, disaster, total loss, hopelessness, and worst of all, a state of immobility which is often called, “stuck!” Failure becomes a signal to shut down all systems– the end– rather than an occasion to become curious about, then motivated to discover some new understanding about their world.
 Learning to review failure as a beginning rather than end point of a learning process can put you in touch with success. Everything you do carries a built-in risk. To love, you must risk rejection or loss; to advance in your profession, you risk losing to a competitor; to invest for profit, you risk financial loss. Every risk you take simultaneously opens the door of opportunity…and the manhole cover of failure. However, when you tumble gloriously into that manhole, the first step out is evaluating the damage. Use a scale from one to ten, one being minor and ten being very major. How much did the failure hurt you emotionally, professionally or socially? How much did it hurt others? What did it cost in terms of money or effort, or both?  If your most critical evaluations render a string of “one through fives”, allow yourself to experience comfort and relief (two feelings that you may now borrow from totally different occasions in your personal history). Things could have been much worse; and you have the ability to make them better.
 The next step is difficult and challenging. It will require your fullest capabilities and resources to achieve. Those of you who believe you are too hopeless to have any capabilities, stop reading here. The rest of you who wish to re-evaluate failure as a signal to continue…
Begin by allowing an experience to emerge in your conscious awareness in which you recently failed or became stuck–unable to proceed in some fashion. Take your time and let this scenario emerge fully. 
 Next, consider a time when you “goofed, then recovered.” Perhaps you called a friend or date by someone else’s name; or your stomach grumbled at a meeting and everyone looked at you; or your car broke down, while you were with someone you wished to impress; or you tripped and dropped something like a tray of food in public. Re-live this experience by stepping back into it and getting a clear image of what you saw then…and hear what you heard…and pay attention to any feelings, knowing that ultimately, you survived the experience. Review it a few times, and then proceed.
 Can you remember when you had something to say; something on the “tip of your tongue”, but it wouldn’t come out? You knew it was there, somewhere in the back just waiting to be said, but it wouldn’t come to the front. You had to wait your turn; or someone interrupted you, or another thought interrupted that one. Pay attention to that experience for a moment. Get in touch with how that felt. Where were you at the time?
 Now, think of a recent occasion when you were “curious” to find out something. Such as receiving a letter marked “I…R…S”, or seeing two people in the distance talking softly and looking at you; or when, after one hour of an exciting t.v. show the words, “to be continued” flash across your screen. Experience repeatedly, the sights, sounds and feelings of such a time as intensely as possible.
 Finally, review a situation in which you experienced unbridled motivation; a time when you had to go after something, you could not resist– when you were really psyched! Allow all your senses to become highly aware of this, at once! After fully and repeatedly experiencing these steps, re-experience them in sequence, faster and faster, several times. After about ten trials, think only of the first step which began the sequence,, when you failed and were at an impasse…and notice the new beginnings.