Can You Handle Deferred Success?
Are you willing to fail to the point of success?
No! Well you should be.
Failure is what leads to success; it is proof of action. All
your efforts that lead to failure should be praised and
rewarded, for they are moving you in the direction of the
success.
In all areas of life, the people who are forging ahead with
progress are the ones willing to fail, because they know enough
failures lead to success. They know that success is just being
deferred with each failure, not prevented.
The only way to surely fail is to stop attempting. If you fail
twice and give up, you can now be sure you will not succeed. But
you are the one placing the guarantee on it not the situation.
The key is to just keep going.
Thomas Edison sought failure eagerly, he knew with each failure
he was a little closer to a solution. The faster he failed, the
sooner he got to the prize.
Success is going from failure to failure without loss of
enthusiasm. - - Winston Churchill
When the results don't come out as you want it's time to review
what transpired then determine a new adjusted plan of action.
There is a success called plan called, plan, do, review, which
is self explanatory and simple. But this basic process repeated
over and over will bring you closer and closer to the intended
result. Implement this simple process I everything you do and
you will see two things. You will start to embrace the natural
process of discovery and understanding, and you will see success.
Fear is one of our worst enemies when it comes to success. In
two ways many people allow fear to defeat them.
One, the fear of failure right from the beginning prevents them
from even get started. They are so concerned about what could
possibly go wrong that even getting started is too hard. Second,
they allow the fear of continual failure to become stronger than
their convictions and drive. They allow their fears to meld with
worry to sabotage their intentions.
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to
achieve: the fear of failure. - -Paulo Coelho
So what does it take to overcome these fears?
1- Determination--Having a very strong drive and focus on the
desired result helps to keep one strong through adversity. In
the classic book "Think And Grow Rich", Napolean Hill said you
needed to develop a white-hot heated burning desire to succeed.
When this burning desire becomes strong enough it will override
the disappointments of interim setbacks, giving you the drive to
persist.
2- Perception--A key trait of the people who can accept failure
and forge through it, is they don't see failure as the end.
Rather they look at it as a learning opportunity, a point to
assess, adjust and go again. How you perceive something and
interpret it determines how you allow it to effect you. And this
is certainly the case with the fear of failure. The person who
can continue through setbacks is one who sees them as momentary
not permanent.
3- Self-concept--How you see yourself in terms of your right,
ability and worthiness to be doing something can effect your
confidence behind your pursuits. It is very helpful to come to a
point where you know you are worthy of your desired goal. Know
that you are just a worthy as anyone else and that delays and
failures along the way are not signs that you don't deserve it.
They are merely the means of discovery that everyone
experiences. Work on yourself, develop a strong high self-esteem
and you will be able to weather the storm.
If you want something bad enough you should be willing to stick
with it to the point where there are no more failure options.
Failure really is a good thing. The people who fail the most win
the most. I'm sure you have heard before that Babe Ruth with his
home run record also holds the record for the most strikeouts.
How can this be? Well, more strikeouts show more opportunities
for homeruns. If he did not have all the opportunities to keep
attempting home runs, he would never have hit them.
More attempts mean more strikeouts and more homeruns. Thomas
Edison utilized this principle also, he was relentless and
conducted experiments at a fast pace in order to get through the
learning and adjusting phase quickly. He knew it was just how
the process worked. There was no master conspiracy against him
making things more difficult, just the natural process.
Both of these men knew that success was merely deferred, not
impossible.
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. - -Denis Waitley
Don't get mad, don't get disappointed, just keep going.
Focus your sights in the target and don't let the failures deter
you. Visualize the things that don't go according to plan as
deferred success, success only delayed for a while. Don't allow
failure to be guaranteed by quitting. The success is there, you
just need to properly align yourself with it and this may take a
few or even many attempts. Are you determined to have a resolve
stronger than the setbacks?
It comes down to choice, are you going to succumb to the
roadblocks or are you going to take command of your personal
growth and choose to learn from the failures? Will you continue
to readjust and keep going at it until you eliminate all the
reasons why not?
I believe that one of the characteristics of the human race -
possibly the one that is primarily responsible for its course of
evolution - is that it has grown by creatively responding to
failure. Glen Seaborg - American Scientist & Nobel Laureate