I was teaching in Church the other day when I told God’s people that, “one of the subtle strategies of the devil is to make the ‘failures’ of this outgoing year to colour your perspective about the upcoming year thereby affecting your possibility mentality.” You must learn how to handle failure successfully.

Dear friend, failure is not final or fatal. It is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Some people view failure and success as opposites, not realizing that failure is actually part of the success mix. Failure is not a person, it is only an event. No matter what happens to you, always remind yourself that you are never a failure (Psalms 139:14).

The outgoing year might have been filled with a lot of discouraging outcomes; you must never let them define you or your perspective about life generally. You are not what happens to you, you are who God says you are; a victor, not a victim (Romans 8:37). Never allow what happens to you to happen in you. Your mindset must not be determined by your circumstances but by the word of God (Proverbs 23:7, Philippians 4:8).

We learn more from failure than we learn from success. As someone rightly put it, “when you fall, make sure you pick up something as you rise”. Failure is part of the learning process. Not learning from failure might be the failure itself. What has failure taught you this year? One way to not repeat the failure is to learn the lesson it presents and leverage it for improved performance.

Crises times are learning time. Most times, the problem is not the real problem, it has only come to reveal the real problem (Proverbs 24:10). What has the outgoing year revealed about your life and business? What leadership lessons have you learnt? What faith gaps need to be filled? What perspective needs to be realigned? What foundation needs to be checked and corrected?

As you prepare for the upcoming year, may I suggest that you review the events of this year? While you appreciate God and bask in the euphoria of the successes, you also need to learn from the failures so you can rise a better person, well positioned for a glorious new year. You should be able to say like the Prophet Micah that, “Rejoice not against me, O my enemy: when I fall, I shall arise…” (Micah 7:8). You will rise again. Amen!

© ‘Demola Awoyele
Lead Pastor,
Destiny Impact Church
Akure, Nigeria