Failure is success (it's how you look at it)

The other day I was able to step into a "old" group that I use to facilitate, and listen to the topic at hand. The topic was success, and how people in this group were sharing their success stories with each other. Many people at this group did not say anything, or offer any feedback as each person was given the chance to speak. The group leader asked if I would like to offer any thoughts. The first thing out of my mouth was failure. That got people's attention real quick. Each face with a pair of eyes was watching me now. I walked up to the marker board. (I have never learned how to speak my thoughts with out a marker board!) I wrote failure in big black letters. Then I drew a arrow from the word failure to (as I wrote the word) success. Hands went up quick, there must of been six hands shoot up. I called the first hand. The person replies that failure can not be a success, and soon the head nodding was alive again, and I could here whispers between the group. I looked at this person and responded, each time self fails self has the ability to succeed. For example, if you have a relapse, you have the choice to have another one or not to have another relapse. If you choose not to have a relapse, and work your program that is a success for that moment right there. You may have failed, but you are teaching your self how to work through it, and and keep trying- that my friends is a success. If you choose to dwell on your relapse, make it bigger, you will let failure control your thoughts. Every time you fail, you have the power to make it a success if you believe in your self and your program. Five seconds went by. The voices were getting louder, I could hear the failure stories, but each story slowly began to turn positive. We started the group again. This time each person was to give a recollection of a failure, and how they worked through it. It was amazing to hear how group members could recount failed experiences- (it was obvious that some were not letting go of the past) you could feel their negative energy. As the hour grew longer, it appeared that many in the group were learning how to look at failure in a different way- not beating them self up- but trying to move forward to have the potential to succeed. I closed with this for our group. We all make mistakes, we all have failures in our life, we need to be accountable for this. Being accountable is part of success, owning up to our failure with honesty is a positive behavior. The trick is to learn from our failures, let the negative energy out and focus on the positive energy! It's how you look at your failures and move forward- that is a success. Something to be proud of. Stay in your health, stay in the moment.