Failure Is The Stepping Stone To Greatness

We both sat back in our tree stand disappointed and defeated. I had been waiting for this chance all season and my daughter had waited for five years to get her chance at a buck. He came in just like I had envisioned he would. Everything was going perfectly then suddenly everything went wrong.

 The buck would not turn and give my daughter a ethical clean shot. Then the battery on the video camera I was using showed signs of dying. The buck turned and started walking the wrong way and my daughter was having a hard time getting into position. Up to this point everything was moving in almost slow motion but then in an instant went into warp speed. The buck appeared out of the thick brush again and a hasty shot was taken and I wasn't even able to get the camera on it. It was a clean miss. All that hard work and effort gone in a millisecond. There was nothing left to do but deal with the disappointment and try and learn from our mistakes.

 About a year ago I was talking to the woman who became my wife and we were discussing how I viewed failures, Lord knows I have had plenty and I should be an expert on the subject. I used to beat myself up over failures. They would drive me into times of depression and anxiety. However, over the last ten years I have started to view them differently. Failures are nothing more then a stepping stone, they are used to set us up for success the next time around.

 So often in life people do what I often did and let their attitude towards failure drive them in the wrong direction. We sulk, we cry and we throw a pity party when the realty is we are closer then we were before the mistake. We took that next step. Failure can teach us things that easy success never will.

 Two nights ago I was sitting in another stand with my daughter. Armed with the lessons we had learned from two weeks earlier. This time the buck was not a small buck but a giant mature whitetail. The pressure was intense. The battery was dying again (apparently I didn't learn all the lessons of the previous hunt) and the buck we were trying to get was one of the biggest I had ever seen while hunting. When the moment of truth came we were faced with many of the same scenarios as the last time; quick shot, camera problems, rough angle and ridiculous amounts of adrenaline. Ashley performed with tremendous poise and I was able to hold it together and get enough battery life out of the camera. We had succeeded.

 There is no doubt in my mind that had we not faced the adversity and failure of the previous hunt we would not have gotten the much bigger buck the other night. Ashley and my disappointment was very real two weeks ago but now is a distant memory to the sweet success we had this weekend. Had we not failed that opportunity would not have materialized.

 Don't fret the failure it is just a stepping stone to something better...

Thanks For Reading
Steve