“Failure of what?” You might be thinking. Simple….everything!!! Failing in your relationship, failing in your job, failing to find happiness, failing in business, failing your kids, failing your parents, need I go on? People are so scared of putting themselves out there because if “it” fails (whatever “it” might be), it is hard to overcome, the feeling is terrible.
Then right when you are thinking about putting yourself out there, everyone promptly reminds you that your chances of failure are HUGE! (Don't you love that?) The divorce rate is soaring, the economy is failing, the world is unstable, and governments are fighting, your chances of being successful are very limited. Then they follow up with, "Are you sure?" With a very concerned look on their face. As if you have just snatched up your sword and are heading out to slay a towering, 30 foot, fire breathing dragon! (We will name the dragon "FEAR" for the sake of this story.) This dragon is very successful, in fact, "FEAR" has won all of it's battles thus far. Suddenly you become terrified, "What if I do fail? All of those things are true, so true that no one else is being so brave." You think, "Maybe I shouldn't even bother in the first place? Ya, that is definitely the safer choice."The problem with this thinking is that we are made to experience, we are built as natural explorers on a Soul level. We want to live…we want to experience! So if you never put yourself out there, you are left with a longing and unsatisfied feeling on a much deeper level, much deeper then you even think about.
I know a couple who owned a contracting business and they did really well. People would say things like, “I wish I could own a business, or do what you are doing”, and their response would always be the same, “You can, you just have to put yourself out there!” Well, they would hear the same thing over and over again, “No, I have bills to pay. I can’t do that!” That would be followed by the many reasons why it wasn’t possible. The funny thing is, the same people who owned that business, also had bills to pay and they also lived paycheck to paycheck when they started their business. But what they did was, they overcame their fear of the business potentially “failing” (despite all the many warnings from friends) and tried it anyway. They were also scared, but they really wanted to own a business and their desire to own a business eventually out weighed the fear.
That is really what sets many successful people apart from the not so successful people. It is not that they had no fear, it was that their desire to succeed overpowered their fear of failing. Here is an example of some famous failures:
1) Michael Jordan - Cut from his high school basketball team (bet they feel pretty stupid).
2) Walt Disney - He was fired by the editor of a newspaper for lacking in ideas. (Good thing that happened or no Disney?!?! That would be weird).3) Babe Ruth - Struck out 1,330 times.
4) Steven Spielberg - applied to U.S.C. film school, but was rejected three separate times.
5) Donald Trump – filed bankruptcy three times.
Those are just famous failures with good outcomes, but there are many, many ordinary people (I am sure people that you know) who have overcome their failures and fears to become very successful in whatever it was they wanted to accomplish. When we moved to Hawaii we sold everything that we owned, twenty years worth of things that we acquired, and moved 3500 miles away from the only place that we had known as home for our entire life. It was tremendously scary! We have people tell us all of the time, “I wish I could do that!” My husband and I always laugh and say, “Um, you can.” Then they proceed to tell us the many reasons why they can’t, family, money, friends, jobs, etc. We laugh again, cause we ourselves left all of those things behind. If someone actually said, “Cause it’s too scary!” We would understand.
It is important for you to know that most people are scared, they are scared of failing, but the people who overcome those fears and “jump off the high dive” so to speak, experience life the way it is meant to be lived. They feel a satisfaction of trying, down to their very Soul. Even if they fail, they learn from that experience and usually want to try it again. They begin to use any failures as learning material, as knowledge, in order to help them succeed.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career, I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over in my life. And that's why I succeed!" - Michael Jordan
I love that saying…..
0 comments:
Post a Comment