“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” Norman Vincent Peale
There is a street I take on a regular basis and part of the reason I like taking this street is I pass a church that displays 
interesting food for thought on a sign out front. The other day the latest message caught my eye: “What would you do in 2011 if failure were not an option?”
It is a very simple question with huge implications. It highlights how often we let fear stop us from even attempting a project, a goal, or a long held dream. It calls into question how our mindset affects the effort we are willing to expend to at least see if something is possible. Failure in itself is not a bad thing. I say that because making mistakes is how we learn. It is the fear factor associated with failure that creates inaction and is one of life’s greatest hurdles.
Learn to fail faster
Fear is a de-motivator and every time we give in to our fears we avoid the consequence of the dreaded failure but also are left with little else but our inaction. No one wants to fail but it is an inevitable part of life. But, the important 
consideration is what happens after a failure or put another way do we learn to fail intelligently? I know of very few people who attempt something and it works perfectly the first time out of the blocks. So our goal should be to expect failure and then step back to analyze why the plan did not work in order to make the necessary adjustments that will provide success.
Learning to fail faster is the goal we should all aim for to shorten the learning curve. We live in an age when all the information we need is right at our fingertips in the form of books and the internet but we often fail to use them to learn from the failures (and successes) of others. Develop the practice of checking what others have learned and therefore fail faster toward your end goal.
Take more risks
Promise yourself to take more risks. A recent study indicates we maintain mental capacity longer if you tackle things that are intellectually challenging. Getting beyond the areas of comfort pushes us to learn and that experience offers encouragement to not fear challenge. Every time you attempt, fail, and make adjustments; it moves you closer toward success with the added benefit of increasing brain power.
Explore more
Take time to just explore in the large and small areas of your life. You might be surprised the things you will discover by simply taking a different route to work one day. On a basic level it may provide an alternate route in the event there is a traffic jam and you are tired of sitting in idle. Exploring broadens the horizon in that it provides more options than might have been available if you had stuck to the beaten path. Just giving yourself permission to simply ‘look around’ in a number of ways lifts the spirit, and all of us need that from time to time.
I hope you now understand why that simple question set my mind racing. And I hope you are at the point of asking yourself what you would be willing to try that previously seemed out of your reach. I say that because failure is always an option but fear is not.
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