Successful Failing: Pursuing Our Quest for Perfection

Maybe our most difficult challenge is to deal with the second category of failures: those that are not willful sin or intentional calculated risks, but rather the unavoidable, uncontrollable failures that occur because of the messiness of life or because of factors beyond our direct control... What do you do when all these things and even more important ones seem to go wrong at the same time and you feel completely alone, overwhelmed, and totally a failure? What do you do then? Let me suggest you follow the advice given in Hebrews 10:35: Cast not away your confidence. You have not arrived at this point in your life without having accomplished much... The process is better than that, and YOU are better than that. More importantly, you have the potential to be much better than that. Remembering what you've already accomplished in understanding your full potential can contribute to the development of the kind of emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual resilience that will allow you... to meet personal challenge and change. 

We are promised from a spiritual perspective that our adversity and affliction shall be but a small moment, that we can be certain that whatever we are going through will be temporary.... As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland put it, "If you are lonely, please know you can find comfort. If you are discouraged, please know you can find hope. If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be strengthened. If you feel you are broken, please know you can be mended.” Because of the Atonement, all failures are challengeable and temporary, except for the one that occurs when we give up, so whatever you do, don't you dare give up. 

Yes I am asking you to trust yourself more, but more importantly I'm asking you to trust God. I urge you in your moments of doubt and despair, in the times you think you fail and you can't make it right to focus more on Him and less on yourselves. Too often, we ask the wrong question when we fail. We ask, am I good enough? but the real question is, is God good enough? Is He as good as He says He is? Can He really deliver on his promise that all things will work together for our if we will trust Him and strive to do the best we can and keep going whenever we fall short? I testify that He is. God is as good, as powerful, as loving, as patient, and as consistent as He says He is. If we will but focus on the eternal truths He has made available to us both through institution revelations and through personal promptings and reassurances, He will turn all our failures into successes. 

-President Kevin J. Worthen