Diary Of My Life 💋👏

The Power

W ould you like to be successful throughout
the remainder of your life? Would you like to enjoy meaningful success where you learn, grow, and contribute in significant ways; where your life is full, counts for something, and makes a difference? If your answer is “yes,” then you must fail. There is no exception to this rule. Significant success requires failure, but failure must be regarded in a whole new light.Failure is one of the most dreaded words in the English language.

The very idea of failing is enough to stop most people in their tracks. It can cause the  majority to simply pack up, turn around, and retreat without even trying.
Success, on the other hand, is nearly a magical idea for most people. The possibility of succeeding or becoming a “success” is an almost mythical pursuit. People love to be labeled a success and will often sac- rifice greatly to achieve this end.

Although most people hate to be labeled a fail- ure and love to be labeled a success, it is only through seeming failure that most of life’s greatest successes are achieved. Usually, “failure” or “success” is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder.
As an example, who can forget the classic chil- dren’s story The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen? One of the birds in a community of ducks is singled out for constant ridicule because he is so different from the rest. He is treated as an utter fail- ure and comes to view himself as exactly that. Consequently, he loses his sense of hope, falls into despair, and runs away from his troubles.

Eventually the Ugly Duckling learns that his dif- ference is not the curse that he thought it was. In fact, when he finally sees his own reflection in a pond and discovers that he is a magnificent swan, his apparent failure in life is completely transformed.

This story may reflect an essential truth about what we call “failure.” It is very often a mispercep- tion about the difference between what exists and goes unnoticed (such as growth and learning when we fall short of reaching a goal) and what is realized later (longer term success).

Of course, sometimes failure is tied to a lack of competence to perform in the face of a specific chal- lenge, but seeming failures can be a powerful way to learn and ironically provide the means for life’s great- est breakthroughs and successes. Eventually we can learn to accept that what most people call failures are usually only temporary setbacks in relation to some arbitrary standard and are an essential part of life. They are usually just challenges in progress. This im- portant lesson can help us understand that the only real failures occur when we back away from worth- while challenges without even trying or when we re- fuse to learn from our setbacks.

Changing our perspective is often the key to finding success in seeming failure. Optimistic think- ing has sometimes gotten a bad rap as being unrealis- tic, but research has found that we can indeed live happier, healthier, and more successful lives if we can learn to discover the opportunities in problems.

These problems then become merely challenging op- portunities that we can turn to our advantage. They provide opportunities for personal growth and can stimulate our creativity for finding better ways to live.