No defeat or failure is final.There is always another chance.No matter what you think or feel, it is never too late to start trying again.
Of course, a lot depends on the kind of person you are.Your attitude to past failures and how you go about turning failure into success is crucial.
A student who fails an examination not only once, but twice over, is in danger of developing a failure complex.
His confidence badly shattered, he makes his third attempt, almost expecting to fail.Even as he studies he feels there is no point as he is going to fail anyway.It is called: "defeatism".It is like a cancer as it eats away at the confidence of the person.Everything conspires to condition another failure, more dismal and defeating than the last.
It gets worse...
It is strange but it is a psychological fact that this person, who was hopeful from the beginning, may reach a stage when he almosts wants to fail.His self-talk is negative and self-defeating.
So what do we do? Obviously,the first step is to forget the things of the past and move on.It is almost a cliche when we say that we cannot change the past but we can influence the future.However it is true.The past can never be changed.We made the wrong choices from not studying effectively for an exam to resigning from a job position to gettting divorced.
It is essential to realise that we made the wrong decision in a different time and in a different emotional state.However hindsight is always an exact science.Isn't that true?
What we need to do is to visualize what we want and not what we don't want.Every person on this planet fails.Some failings can't be seen by others but we ourselves know about them.Often someone who stays in their comfort zone and does nothing thinks that they don't fail.The truth is that they fail desperately.They don't risk anything and therefore learn very little about themselves and the world.They are the real failures.The people who take a risk and then fail and don't make it are the hero's.We need to realise that failure is an important part of life.Without failure we stay the way we are and become stagnant.
Consider the tortoise.The moment he sticks his neck out he stands the chance of having it cut off. But it is the only way he can move forward.The other alternative is for the tortoise to stay in his shell and never move forward.He won't get his head chopped off but he will starve and never see anything except the inside of his shell.It is quite sad.
It is a psychological truth that you can, if you think you can.If you think you can't,you are defeated before you even begin.But, if you think you can, your chances of success are greatly enhanced.
Thomas Edison, the American inventor, before he discovered the 'light bulb', experienced a great deal of failures. With all his inventions he says his failings measured into the thousands."I knew," he said, "there was a solution to my problem,and that sooner or later I must find it"
It is never too late to try again if your mind is hopefully,believingly,cofidently focussed on final success.
To just try,try,try again does not ensure success.Your mental attitude is all decisive.I when I was in my early twenties my boss asked if I wanted to go for a flip in his small plane in East London, South Africa.As we were taxing down the run way I asked him what the dial for "attitude" was for. I knew what the dial for "altitude" meant and the one for the speed of the plane but not "attitude." Bob said it was simple.Without the "attitude" dial we would crash.The attitude of the plane or the approach of the plane is all important.If you have ever watched the Space Shuttle as it prepares to re-enter earth's atmosphere you would have seen it change it's attitude or approach as the astronauts guide it into a roll, this way and then that.It has to have the right attitude or it will simply burn up.What is your attitude to yourself?
After each failure, you must ask yourself "Why did I fail?" Analyse what happened.Instead of feeling sorry for yourself ask yourself a second question "What can I learn from this "failure." Failure is actually the wrong word.We should use the word "outcome" rather.Whatever the "failure" may be it is merely an outcome.Something was done and an outcome was the result.This could be positive or negative depending on the attitude we had towards what we did.
A highly intelligent student I knew was on the way to becoming a chronic failure in her examinations.Then it suddenly dawned on her that her methods of study were largely to blame.Like a child she had been trying to memorise her lectures a page at a time, instead of trying to grasp the essentials of each lecture as a whole.With this new insight, she found that she could master her material with ten times greater ease.
Discover what went wrong as you ask the two questions above and profit from it.Apply this to mastering any skill or aspect of life.There are ways of doing things and there are ways of not doing them.You must discover which is which.And each time you try again,you must seek to correct what was wrong.Instead of fumbling,fooling,failing,your chances of success will increase immeasurable.
There is almost no situation where another go at it, with a freshness and a new understanding will bring about surprisingly good results.
A girl's engagement is broken on the eve of her marriage.A promising man suddenly finds himself diagnosed with advanced Multiple Sclerosis.The despairing cry is " Life can never be the same again" Which of course is true.However life is far greater and a more wonderful thing than we think it is.It has far greater possibilities of happiness and fulfilment than we imagine.
"The road of life," says F.W.Boreham, the famous writer, " is not a highway,with straight roads and broad horizons. It is more like a lane,which turns,and bends and twists in the most unpredictable ways.What seems like the end,may turn out to be a new beginning."
Life proves this over and over again in people's lives.William Robertson Nicoll was a a young minister of religion in Scotland when he developed throat trouble.The muscles of the larynx atrophied, so that for the rest of his life he could only speak in a whisper.He resigned from his parish, and it seemed like he had no future or hope.Yet calmly and with quite resolution and courage he looked for other possibilities.He took up journalism, and developed into one of the most powerful and influential journalists in Britain.
Things are not always so final as they seem.It all depends on how you take it.No situation is too hopeless for another go.
Start now...
Many people today have given up the fight as hopeless.They know they are not the man or woman they once dreamed they would be.But what can they do about it? How can they undo the wrong and the foolish things they have done? How does one break free from habits that enslave?
To quote a well-known writer,"They fling down their weapons, surrender to themselves, stop trying,assume hopelessness that nothing can be done, and just drift according to the currents of life and die." Two mistakes are made by such people.
First, they forget the deep potential for goodness that lies in every man's heart, in spite of what he may have been or is.Alfred Adler the great psychologist held that even in the worst of men there are untapped capacities for good living .Pollsmore, a South African prison adopted a programme of giving parrot birds to the most hardened criminals as pets.The transformation in these criminals has been nothing short of miraculous.They have become caring people again.They have stopped swearing and cursing.Somehow being given a pet to look after has changed them. Everyone has some gold in them.Everyone has the capacity to care and to love.
Secondly, it is a mistake to imagine that life is static,so that when the pattern of your life seems fixed, it can never change.Life is fluid and we are changing all the time - sometimes for the worse, but also sometimes for the better.
Bad and harmful habits can be broken. No person need to remain as they are.It is never too late to break with the past.There is no need to ever despair.
Listed below is the outline of a man's life who had more than his fair share of " failure." Or was it "outcomes?"
(His age at the time is on the left.)
22 Failed in business
23 Ran for Legislature -defeated
24 Failed in business again
25 Elected to the Legislature
26 Sweetheart died (engaged to be married)
27 Had a nervous breakdown.Depressed & wanted to commit suicide.
Spent six months in bed.
29 Defeated for Speaker
31 Defeated for Elector
37 Defeated for Congress
46 Defeated for Senate
47 Defeated for Vice-President - only got 100 votes.
49 Defeated for Senate
51 Elected President of the United States of America
His name was President Abraham Lincoln.He said that everytime he failed it was another lesson of "how not to do it"
What's your excuse?
Even if your teeth fall out at your wedding you can overcome! Have a look at the short video below.
A new article will be posted everyday.Stay tuned and see you soon.
