Do you remember when you were learning to ride a bike? I sure do, I scratched my elbows, knees and felt like I broke my butt! Interestingly enough even though I fell more times than I can count, even though it hurt and I cried, and even though it was mentally painful to know that ‘everyone else can’ and I can’t … I still got back up on that bike and by the power of the Almighty I learned to ride my bike.
Was I young and naive back then? Of course. But did any of the pain or suffering matter after I finally rode my bike with pride? Not at all. Why? Because you see, we humans learn by doing. And most of our doing is failing. Whether it is in relationships, business, modeling or even under-water-basket-weaving the most prominent people in our society have failed in the past. In striving to be at the top, they made plenty of mistakes.
If we take a look at Steve Jobs and Apple for a moment, he and his company are doing extremely well right now right? The iPod, iPhone, OS-X … they have come a long way. But what about in the past? It certainly wasn’t all peachy for all several years ago, not even over a decade ago. As we know Steve Jobs is one of the founders and main figure heads of Apple, but did you know he was fired from being the CEO of Apple? Yup, they fired him. Why? Because at the time he was a failure as a CEO in the eyes of his co-workers. Not exactly a pleasant thing to be fired from your ‘own’ company! And as we also know, he came back several years later and *poof* look where they are now! His failures, whatever they might have been, lead to major company restructing and even his own personaly improvements. By failing, it gave both Apple and Mr. Jobs time to take a step back and look at the picture from a different angle.
On LifeHacker there is a great article about this as well (Failure Is the Highway to Success).
Don’t be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.
- John Keats
There is no better way to learn than by trying. You are bound to fail. Do not be discouraged by it. This is how we learned to swim, drive, ride a bike and even have relationships with our significant others. This is much easier said than done though. Here is some food for thought to help you on your journey to riches:
- When you don’t succed, look back onto it.
- Why did it not work out?
- What could have I done differently?
- What is actually my fault or was it out of my control?
- Where could I improve upon so that I can do it better next time?
- If you can’t think clearly about the event, try to calm down.
- Go blow my SPARE money. Go gamble $100 dollars away, buy a nice shirt, go to the arcade …ect (be reasonable with this amount though)
- Take your mind of off it by doing just about anything else: sitting at an arcade all day, clubbing, drawing, programing, just hanging out with friends all day, ‘Shadow your friend/boss day’ at work…
- Hit something semi-firm, preferably NOT someone.
- Punching bag
- Pillow
- Sand
- Playing/practice/learn a musical instrument
- Engage in physical pleasures
- Out of ideas?
- Join support groups, and I don’t mean Alcoholics Anonymous. Groups of like minded people
- Forums
- Local community groups
- Start your own group (who knows, maybe this can even turn into a business!)
- School clubs or events
- Social groups (like Couch Surfing or Hospitality club) to get contacts
- Look at what you did/doing from a new perspective:
- If you’re a photographer, put down the camera. Dress in your best and nicest suit or dress, do your nail and all. And model for a change. Have a friend come over and take pictures of you. Test out what might be new, fun and interesting.
- Join support groups, and I don’t mean Alcoholics Anonymous. Groups of like minded people
- Give it time.
- Get away
- If you have the time, and even if you don’t .. try getting away from it all. Let your mind, body and soul rest in peace for once.
Just remember what you did as a kid, ‘how’ your learned to ride your bike and lead your life that way. Good luck to all of us!
No related posts.
