Inner vs Outer Failures
A person feeling lost, failed.

Depending upon the dimension in which they occour, there are two types of failures: Inner failure and outer failures.

Outer failures (the situational failures)

Outer failures are “unintended outcomes” of your interaction with the outer world. Putting simply, when you take action and outcome is not what you thought it would be, you describe it as a failure. These are “external failure” or “situational failure” instead of “your failure”. Although you were part of the situation which failed, the failure is that of entire situation instead of you.

Inner failure (your failures)

When you deviate from your principles, and commitments, that is an inner failure. The failure happened within you and its independent of any external situation. Allow me to explain.

If you have a principle about speaking truth and if you lied, that is an inner failure. Between your principle and you, its you who failed. Your principle didn’t fail, its you who did.

If you have an internal promise that you will do something today and you didn’t, that is an inner failure. Between your commitment and you, its you who failed. Your commitment didn’t, its you who failed.

For inner failures there is no external situation. You cannot blame anything. Bad weather, lack of knowledge, lack of tools, lack of experience cannot be balmed. There is nothing to blame. It is just you and your principle.

Failure of Action (outer failures) vs Failing on Principles (inner failures)

Outer success is a numbers game, inner success is not

Outer success is a numbers game. The more attempts you make, the more you fail, the closer you get to your success.

Now depending upon “how complex”, “how new” and “how large” you are targetting, more and more external failures will be required.

Fix a broken toy: 5 failures

Crate a new product: 1000 filures

Create a new business: 10,000 failures

Reach Mars: Millions of failures

The number of outer failures you experience reveal how new, large and big you are playing. Remember: outer failures only happen when you TAKE ACTION. If you are thinking, wishing, wanting, reading, discussing or planning, NONE of them is action and no matter how many times you thought, wished, wanted or planned, you will not get closer to success.

Failures are simply a currency. That is a currency with which you buy success. The bigger success you are after, the more failures will be required to buy that.

Inner failures are not numbers game

Inner failures do not get you closer to your goals.

Once again, not standing by your values is the inner failure. No matter how many times you experience inner-failures, you do not achieve success. Inner-failures do not get you closer to your goals. INNER FAILURES ARE NOT A NUMBERS GAME.

The more inner failures you experience, the more self respect you lose, the less confidence you have and the less likely you are to experience outer failures. Be mindful of them. Don’t stop short of taking action. Don’t fail within.

May Allah help you get all your want and all you need in both worlds. Aamin.
['Salman Ehsan']
['Failure', 'Outer Failure', 'Failing Forward', 'Failing', 'Inner Failure']