It is scary, like when you were little and so terrified of the dark and felt your stomach fall every time your bedroom light went off at night. It is heartbreaking, like when you fall so hard in love with someone and then one day it ends and every bit of you hurts. It holds you back, like when you couldn't swim and you wouldn't dare go near the deep end because that risk of pushing yourself was too much to try. Failure is defined by Merriam-Webster as a "lack of success." We have failure every day. I have failure every day. Some days I fail to wake up when my alarm goes off, I fail to make it to class on time, I fail to remember the things I have been asked repeatedly to do and sometimes I feel like I have failed so badly at something it keeps me from moving forward, and that's what this article is about.

All of us have come to a point in our life when we have felt like we disappointed someone or some people or even ourselves. And maybe we have become so overwhelmed with just the thought and concept that we ourselves could be a failure and we stop. We just stop. We don't try again because of the fear we won't be successful. We become hindered from our own lives because we don't want to accept that we didn't get it right the first time or the first few times or we messed up and sometimes we mess up badly and we let those negative memories dictate who we start to become. I've done this before. I have a feeling that if you are reading this at some point in your life you have done this to yourself before too.

I have learned from my own actions and failures something that I didn't realize before. The only time I ever truly failed was when I gave up. When I didn't want to be embarrassed, I didn't want to be hurt again, I didn't want to keep trying only to keep failing. Then I did fail because I gave up on myself. Life gets hard, it isn't all happy go lucky and rainbows and butterflies all the time. Sometimes it just sucks. You reach high points and low points in your life and there are some low points that can hit really hard and you feel like you will never be able to get past that. You feel like you've fallen down a deep hole and just aren't strong enough to climb out. You may be afraid to fail and tell yourself, "I won't be able to do it so I'm not going to even try." Don't let this fear of failing keep you from the potential that you have. There are six words that I have come to tell myself when it gets tough. I can, I do, I will.

I can make it through anything that comes my way if I believe in myself.

I do succeed in many aspects of my life when I put my heart in to it.

I will push forward and not let failure keep me from reaching the potential that I have.

We fail every day, but we succeed every day. Let your successes and your failures build you up. You are the only one that ultimately allows yourself to persevere and not give up on yourself.

You can never fail if you never give up.