Failure Can Help You Succeed
Sunday
May 16, 2010
By Anthony D Carter
Don’t let failure stop you. There is a wealth of opportunity to gained from failed attempts at achieving a goal. When you attempt to do something go at it with all of your might. Give it your best effort and you will win just by doing so.
I know you are probably thinking to yourself, “I’ve already done that before and I did not succeed at hitting my goal. I did not get what I wanted.” To that I respond, you may not have accomplished your goal, but if you gave it your all then you did indeed win. The benefits of your efforts have not revealed themselves yet.
So often the thing that we are striving to be do or have does not come to us on our first try. We may have some growing to do in other areas of our life first before we are capable of receiving what we are after. Or we may learn skills pursuing this present goal which end up later helping us in future endeavors.
There was a time in my life when I was very shy. I joined a multilevel business opportunity. Because I did not have many friends to show the opportunity to my business mentor advised me to get good at making new friends. That meant I had to learn how to walk up to people that I had never met, start a conversation with them, establish rapport and get their name and telephone number. As you can imagine I was petrified.
In addition to that I was expected to stand up in front of an audience of hundreds of fellow team members and tell them what I was doing. The only thing that I feared worse than talking to another person was standing up front speaking before a whole crowd of people.
But my desire to win was stronger than my fear of people. I begin striking up conversations with complete strangers. I did this day in and day out. Sometimes they gave me weird looks. Often I faced insult and I rejection. I failed many times.
After awhile though, I got better at it. I started to succeed. It became easier and more natural to me.
And when it came time to stand before audiences to speak about my journey I did not fear doing so. I told them what I had learned from my many failures. Many people in the audience would later come up to me to and tell me that my story was exactly what they needed to hear in order to inspire them to achieve success in their own lives.
Each time it happened that really made me feel good. I was so happy to learn that someone else benefited from what I talked about. By overcoming my struggles and sharing the insight that I gleaned in the process I was able to make a positive difference in other peoples lives.
My failure became the foundation to my success. That is the reason why earlier I stressed the importance of giving it your all. When you give your all to the task at hand then you grow. Although that growth may not be apparent in your present endeavor, the skills that you acquire will most definitely be used somewhere else in your journey.
Try to always put forth your best effort even in the little things. Everything counts. In the whole scheme of things the way you do anything is the way you end up doing everything. Strive to be good at what you do. Even though you may not be proficient in the beginning, still strive to be good at it.
Also, master the fundamentals. Learn what they are and do them repeatedly to gain the necessary skills for mastery.
I love watching and learning from people who have mastered their craft. It is such a pleasure to watch an expert or professional in action. I guess that is why I love sports so much. These guys and gals practice on a regular basis. They sacrifice in order to do what it takes to be the best in their sport. They dedicate themselves to continual improvement. That is something that we can learn and apply to our lives when it comes to working towards accomplishing our goals.
Immerse yourself in the subject that you are interested in becoming successful at. Don’t just stick your big toe in the water. Instead jump in and go all out. Read everything that you can learn about it. Study people who are already good at what you want to do. Success leaves clues. Associate with people who are striving to hit the same goals that you are.
Be aware that you can do all of the things that I mentioned and still experience failure from time to time. When you repeatedly fail you will feel like quitting. You will think, “Oh what is the use even trying anymore.” But do not succumb to these thoughts. Get back up and hit it again. Just because you failed that does not make you a failure. The only way you can become a failure is if you quit.
Michael Jordan, the greatest athlete that I have ever watched once said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
He became the most recognized athlete on the planet, and yet no one knows him for his failures. He is famous because of his phenomenal success. Some of his achievements include:
- Six-time NBA champion
- NBA Most valuable Player Award 5 times
- 10-time All-NBA First Team
- Rookie of the Year
- Two-time Olympic gold medalist
- One of 50 Greatest Players in NBA History
All of this from a person who experienced so much failure.
A winner never quits. Failure becomes the foundation for a successful person’s eventual triumph.
Keep your failures in the proper perspective and do not let them keep you down. Give it your all and you will grow. Eventually you will get good. In the process you will gain valuable skills that can be used in other undertakings.
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