When at first you don't succeed

"The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom."   ~ George S. Patton Jr.


   What do you do When at first you don't succeed? Do you decide to try something else? Maybe your response is to just sit down and carefully look for who to blame for the failures. Do you blame others for your failure? Rather still, you might be careful enough not to blame others but instead choose to go about sulking over your failed attempt at doing something good. Or maybe you don't sulk over unsuccessful attempts to succeed but instead decide not to try any further and choose to sit back, to give up, and quit trying.
   We all respond to failure in various ways and in the process of working on our dreams, we are going to encounter a lot of difficulties, disappointments, pain and  setbacks at some particular point in our lives. Some of you, like me, might have experienced this more than once in your life. Some of you might have been nurturing the thought of tagging yourselves a 'failure' because of the tangible number of times you've failed at one thing or the other. Well, its high time you had a change of perspective.
   I'm glad to tell you that what you perceive as failure today may actually be a crucial step towards the success you seek. So never give up because there is no failure except in no longer trying. 'One of the things I've realized about success is that the ones who make it are the ones who keep trying until they do.' Mario Andretti once said that "desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek." As we seek to change our perception of failure and success, let me enlighten you on something I find quite fascinating which I believe will help us to see disappointments, setbacks or failure in a new light. I'll like to start with a short story, a popular one at that; and just in case you are familiar with this story, I would implore you to open your mind and read it like it were your first time so that you can hopefully learn something new.



"It's failure that gives you the proper perspective on success." ~Ellen DeGeneres.


  This was the story of a great man who was faced by a similar challenge (failure) in the pursuit of his dream. Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He invented many devices like the phonograph, the motion picture camera and developed the electric light bulb that affects our lives greatly; but Thomas Edison's life wasn't all about success. While growing up, Thomas Edison's teachers concluded that he was ''too stupid to learn anything''. Asides that, he was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive" but as an inventor, Edison showed a great deal of perseverance when he recorded 1000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb i.e he failed 1000 times and kept on trying until he finally  achieved his goal.
   This tells me that success in life is not determined by the number of times one fails. Rather, it is determined by your reaction every time you fail. Your attitude and the actions you take when at first you don't succeed is what determines if you are going to remain at that point where you failed or succeed eventually. No wonder Denis Waitley said that "Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. FAILURE IS DELAY, NOT DEFEAT. IT IS A TEMPORARY DETOUR, NOT A DEAD END. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing." When at first you don't succeed, analyze the cause of failure, learn from the experience, then try again. When a reporter asked him, "How did it feel to fail 1000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1000 times. I have successfully discovered 1000 ways to NOT make a light bulb. What a reply that was!. You've got to develop a positive mindset that sees every setbacks as a chance to learn something new and an opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.
   Some say “When at first you don’t succeed, just sit down and eat cake . . . then try again.” It might sound funny but it's true and I totally agree with that as long as you don't forget while eating cake to get back up and try again. It really doesn't matter how many times you've tried without success, you just have to get back up and try again and again believing in yourself even if you are the only one that believes in you. You also have to believe that "it's not over until you win". Even the famous Henry Ford failed and went broke two times before he successfully created the Ford Motor Company. That moment when at first you don't succeed is not the time to lose hope in that dream, instead you have to believe much more that it can be done. Like David J. Schwartz said in his book 'The Magic of Thinking Big' that "Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution."



"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune;
but great minds rise above them"
~ Washington Irving



   We can't always be winners the first time around and we sometimes get frustrated; you may even entertain giving up because of the idea of failing. The good news is you can always go back and try again, better this time because in the process of doing that, you'll discover some things about yourself than you don't know right now. "The true measure of success is how many times you can bounce back from failure". ~Stephen Richards. As the saying goes, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." You have to be tough in the pursuit of your dream, you have to stay hungry for that course, don't get discouraged to try over and over again until you get it right and can celebrate your success.


"I don't believe I have special talents, I have persistence … After the first failure, second failure, third failure, I kept trying."
~ Carlo Rubbia, Prize winning Physicist



   Now, how about you think through these: The popular Harry Potter story book was rejected by twelve publishers before it was finally published a year after but more than 400 million copies of the book have been sold today. Walt Disney was turned down 302 times before he got financing for creating Disney World. Micheal Jordan was dropped from his high school basketball team but he turned out to be the greatest basketball player. Bill Gates failed at his first business with Paul Gilbert, and Paul Allen but wasn't discouraged from trying again; he went ahead to cofound Microsoft with Paul Allen which turned out to be a major success. Colonel Sanders (the founder of KFC) had his fried chicken recipe rejected 1009 times before it was finally accepted by a restaurant. Steven Spielberg was
denied two times to the prestigious University of Southern California film school but he went on to direct some of the biggest movie blockbusters in history and in 1994 got an honorary degree from the film school that rejected him twice. And of course Thomas Alva Edison ended up as the greatest innovator of all time with 1,093 US patents to his name, along with several others in the UK, and Canada.


"There is something to be said for keeping at a thing, isn't there?"
~ Frank Sinatra

How Small is "Too Small"?

How small is "too small"?. In life, we make a lot of decisions and set goals like the kind of assets we want to own, places we want to go to, our physical appearance, the kind of relationships we want to have, what we do for fun, the type of job we want to have, our annual income, and milestones we want to achieve. Obviously while doing that, we are faced with the task of determining how much of that thing we would like to have, give, do, take, or accomplish.


 Knowing fully well that our decisions affect our future, then it's not enough to just set goals. Rather we should set goals that are challenging, that commands our thoughts, liberates our energy, inspire our hopes, goals that demands more from us, requires us to improve on ourself before they can be accomplished, goals that puts us on the edge of our comfort zone and push us towards what we want in our life.
 
   In other to achieve this, we must then ask ourselves some sincere personal questions like:
Do my goals feel creative enough?
Do they scare me?
Do they end up making me a better person at the end?
If our goals don’t feel creative, they’re probably too small and when they don't make us to think “How am I going to do that?” then they are probably too small and doesn't require much from us to achieve them and this kind of goals end up adding little or no significant improvement to our lives.

   Keeping your goals small keeps you small as well. Rathee than having small goals, set your sights just a bit higher than you think you should, and go for it! Improve on the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take. You have to decide to do more, aim for more, look for more information you need to be well prepared, put in more effort, listen more, study more, exercise more. Execute that plan with passion and enthusiasm. Decide how fast you want to go, how much you want to achieve; decide to write a better book, to score a higher grade, to give more, and to be more.

If you limit your choices only to what seem possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that Is left is a compromise. ~ Robert Fritz

   Everything you think, say, and do needs to become intentionally bigger and aligned with your purpose, and your goals. If you don't like your outcome, you have to change your response because if you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got. Do more of what is working, do less of what isn't, try new behaviors, set a bigger goal, take on a bigger task, dare to be more than you already are and stop settling for less than you want.

   You have to quit worrying what other people think and follow your heart, You have to quit worrying what challenges you'll face and prepare to overcome them, You have to quit worrying if anybody will ever believe in you and instead believe in yourself, you have to quit worrying if you are ever going to achieve that big goal and start working towards achieving it as well as believing that you can because that's what makes you a winner.

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. ~ Michelangelo

   Thoughts of failure, disease, loneliness and fear only push you into a behavior which leads you directly to fail, become ill, feel lonely and fearful. You shouldn't let fear keep you from walking around terrified of dying every moment of every day; you shouldn't let the fear of failure keep you from dreaming big dreams and setting bigger goals; you shouldn't let the fear of the unknown keep you from taking up new tasks; you shouldn't be limited to doing only things that seem possible.

   John F.Kennedy dreamed of putting a man on the moon. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a country free of prejudice and injustice. Bill Gates dreams of a world in which every home has a computer that is connected to the Internet.

   When Monty Roberts, the author of The man who listens to horses was in high school, his teacher gave the class the assignment to write about what they wanted to do when they grow up. Monty wrote that he wanted to own his own 200-acre ranch and raise thoroughbred racehorses. His teacher gave him an F and explained that his dream was unrealistic because no boy who was living in a camper on the back of a pickup truck would ever be able to amass enough money to buy a ranch, purchase breeding stock, and pay the necessary salaries for ranch hands. When he offered Monty the chance of rewriting his paper for a higher grade, Monty told him, "You keep the F; I'm keeping my dream."
Today Monty's 154-acre flag is Up Farms in Solvang, California, raises thoroughbred racehorses and trains hundreds of horse trainers to train horses.

   Just as Bob Proctor- Self made millionaire, radio and TV personality, and success trainer once said "We come this way once. We can either tiptoe through life and hope that we get to death without being too badly bruised or we can live a full, complete life achieving our goals and realizing our wildest dreams." So the next time you want to set a goal, write a book, seat for an exam, start a project, compete in a sport, give to charity, or simply gain/ lose weight, take a moment to sincerely ask yourself the question; how small is "too small"?.
.

Life Lessons

In life, we all face problems. Problems we all run away from. Some easy to solve, others a though puzzle. When they strike, they do so from different angles and often affect one or more targets. Most problems are like twistable springs without elasticity limits. Until we ease or solve them, they just stay calm waiting for the right tilt and snap to quake all concerned borders. Some problems are emotional and bring suicidal thoughts, some spiritual and troubles the soul, some mental and results to a lost mind, some social and wreck lives, some physical causing unfair disadvantages and some financial and cause hardship. It is wise to know when and innovate deep insights into how to ease them.