Failure is really only feedback from our environment or the
universe telling us that our response to various events in our lives was not
correct. What that in effect means is
that our responses did not deliver the outcomes that were desirable at that time.
So failure really only serves as an opportunity for us to learn and grow and to
find different responses in the future, that will deliver the outcomes we
desire.
Research has shown that when venture capitalists invest in some
high risk new business ventures the average success rate of these business
ventures is as low as 3 %, when the business owner is under the age of 40. The success rate goes up to 76 % when the
same ventures are driven by individuals over the age of 55. The only difference between the two groups is
age or in real terms experience. The older group has failed more and therefore
has learnt better responses to each event and therefore gets far better and
consistent outcomes.
I have noticed that successful people fail far more often than
unsuccessful people. The most important thing to understand about failure is
that it is only feedback, maybe not the kind of feedback we want, but it is
only the universe not delivering the outcome we want or expect. Successful people have a very simple response
to failure, NEXT. Failure is an
opportunity for us to learn, grow, develop, gain more knowledge or simply
search for better responses that will deliver the outcome we desire. Failure is
never a reason for us to wallow in self-pity or a reason for us to give up.
We don’t consider ourselves successful if we can get our shoes on
in the morning, because that is easy and predictable. We only define people as successful, who
succeed in areas with low rates of success.
Rest assured, whether the people that we look up to were creating a
beautiful painting, writing a piece of music, writing a best seller, or raising
a child, there is no doubt that somewhere along the line they failed in one or
some of their endeavors. Never let
failure or negative feedback from your environment stop you from taking the
action you need to succeed.
The really great entrepreneurs amongst us have an incredible
ability to fail fast, learn the lessons offered and armed with this knowledge,
they move onto the next opportunity. So if you want to succeed in any new
venture, be willing to fail, in fact expect to fail many times along the way,
learn the lessons offered as quickly as possible, by spending as little time as
necessary licking your wounds and get straight back in the saddle, armed with
new knowledge and skills. Each failure, roadblock or challenge along your
journey to success, does not only bring you closer to the success you desire
and deserve, it teaches you invaluable lessons too. Lessons, which will equip
you to not only make better and better, more sound decisions and choices going
forward, but will also often help you to identify opportunities, which may have
remained hidden, had you not encountered the challenge.
“Successful people fail much more often than unsuccessful ones”
Satisfaction Thrives on Challenge
If you have ever played a computer game where you always win, you
soon lose interest and discard the game.
When the game is challenging and allows you to win sometimes and loose
periodically, you remain interested and you work at improving and growing. In fact loosing actually makes playing the
game addictive and makes you want to improve.
Our satisfaction levels thrive on challenge, the moments when life
gets the most difficult is where our brains produce the most Dopamine (a
neurotransmitter that governs reward and learning in our brain). The pleasure center
of our brains is most active when our brains are almost too challenged to
succeed. We are programmed to actually
need failure in our lives to fully enjoy our successes.
How to turn the Negative into Positive
When you are faced with any outcome in your life that is unacceptable
(Failure), take the time to say “Oh Well”
instead of “Oh No”. The key to really turn any apparent failures
into successes is to understand the difference between the actual outcome we
did not want and any additional and unnecessary thoughts we have about the
outcome. For example you lose the
job/race/relationship. Your response, I
am a looser, my life will be terrible going forward and everyone will hate
me. These are all additional thoughts
that have nothing to do with the here and now; they have nothing to do with the
actual failure. In reality all you lost was
the race, job or relationship. All the additional negative thoughts you
introduced, by thinking negative thoughts, is all based on hypothetical
thoughts, which will probably never happen. Why think negative thoughts or
invite more challenge into your experience, after facing any less than ideal
circumstances.
When faced with any failure in your life, acknowledge the failure,
feel the disappointment, for the shortest time possible and move forward. Go through a little grieving cycle and allow
yourself to feel the hurt, but do not wallow in unnecessary self-pity, which
does not serve you at all. If there is
anything to be learnt from the failure or how you could do it differently next
time, just learn it and then have the courage to move on. Don’t get bogged down
in creating perceived extra outcomes or future outcomes, which have nothing to
do with what has actually happened.
Most suffering comes from our thoughts and not from the actual
event itself.
We are conditioned from very early on to define certain things as
failures and others as successes and we then create a belief system around
these definitions, which define us.
For example: If I only give myself a perfect score, when I feel worthwhile and
everything is going according to plan and if I fail, I am worthless. I am
setting myself for disaster. As you know, nothing ever goes exactly according
to plan. There are always challenges, setbacks and disappointments. So if my
measure of feeling worthwhile is based on my need for a constant ebb of
positive outcomes, I will persistently live in a place where I do not feel worthwhile.
You are a truly magnificent being, who lives in a world with
challenge. The challenges you face are here to help you grow, never to make you
feel worthless. Once you recognize that you are only reacting to a thought, a
conditioned response instead of anything real, then it becomes really easy to
use positive self-talk to tell yourself to react to the event and not to create
any additional negative outcomes.
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