When we gracelessly fall on our face in public, down a flight of stairs, or an invisible stump in the middle of a flat sidewalk, sometimes the first thing that comes to mind isn’t “Damn.. I think I broke something ” what most of us are wishing for in this moment, is that somebody cute walking by hasn’t caught a glimpse of our fall, right? Amidst the internal chaos happening within us, what makes us save face, get up and take our next step? Maybe we’ve fallen in cold snow, we have somewhere to be or we realize that the fall really wasn’t that bad. When we think about the risk we take every time we walk, is there  something inside of us that would hinder us from trusting walking as a means of transportation from day to day?

In a sense falling can be compared to failing. In terms of seeing the goal of walking as the ability to put one foot in front of the other. So when we fall we’ve clearly failed at coordinating our feet and accomplishing the goal of walking and moving forward.What I’m getting at with this is that many of us fear falling, it causes us embarrassment, anxiety and forces us to take precautions in advance to avoid the incident all together. But when we do fall, do we lay there helplessly forever, do we always deny help to get up and do we give up on walking? We know walking  literally takes us places  and even if walking is not a blessing everyone of us has, do we all stop moving forward?

Take a look at the definitions of the words “Fail” and “Fall”.

Fall: (of a person) lose one’s balance and collapse.                                                                        Fail: To fall short of success or achievement in something expected,attempted, desired, or approved

Even though there is a one letter difference between the two, we sometimes like to associate them to  having the same meaning.  Many times we mistake our falls in life as failings, when in fact it’s just that we’ve lost our footing or our balance for a moment. There are great lessons to be had when you don’t achieve what you work for and what you learn when you overcome challenges. Sometimes the journey is more enriching than temporary success could ever be. Falling teaches us to stick the path even though it may be slippery, bumpy, embarrassing and pressuring but, in the end it’s worth recovering from.  We’ve probably heard this speech from a million different people throughout our lives. I know I have, but I don’t ever think I’ve understood the message to the point of being able to accept it and finally embrace my falls. I will probably have to hear it a thousand more times to be able to apply it in my life at times when I believe that I’m nothing more than my failures. I do quite a bit of falling but, now I believe that there are people or somebody down the line that is waiting for me to get up and stride.  We need to start believing and having confidence in our capabilities, like they’re as innate as walking. We can’t keep letting what people tell us hold clouds over our heads, or let obstacles that come on the way break down our spirit. We have to start learning from our slips.

Get up! The snow is cold, we do have somewhere to be and the fall is not that bad! We don’t always have to get up alone!

We ALL fALL  (Remember: There is no ALL in fAIL)

Ignite your Ambition

LizC