Changing the Narrative on Failure

When you fail, try again—beautiful things take time.

Unfortunately, the pretty picture didn’t just happen. I actually photographed the tree in the morning time, and when I reviewed the pictures, they were either out of focus or not exposed correctly. I was kind of upset I didn’t have a single image to use, and the time period for good outdoor lighting had already passed. So, I just shrugged it off and went about my day. 

Then, later that evening while I was driving home, I noticed how beautiful the wildflowers looked on the side of the road. In this moment, I heard the Lord whisper, ‘try again.’  I knew He was referring to the photographs I had taken earlier that day.

So, as soon as I got home, I grabbed my camera and went back to that exact tree to photograph it, again. Not only did I have great outdoor lighting to work with, but I also knew how to make adjustments to the settings on my camera to get a better shot.

After this experience, I began to reflect on how failure is viewed. The word has such a negative connotation and is seen as a bad thing. But, what if we changed the narrative to how we view failure?

And we see it for what it truly is: a learning experience.

When ‘failure’ occurs, we have the opportunity to reflect on what happened and what went wrong. And instead of failure being the end of something, it can be an opportunity to try again and make it better, or more beautiful, the next time around. We can learn from our failures, and then make adjustments to move forward.

So, if you’re experiencing ‘failure’ in any area of your life, I would encourage you to try again, too. Failure is only failure if you didn’t learn something from it.

Here’s one of the photos from the images that didn’t turn out due to the flowers being out of focus. May this also be a reminder that beautiful things take time.