Surviving failure makes success all the more sweet. Here’s how to learn from mistakes and come back strong after life knocks us down.
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We want it all these days. The fame, the glory, the power and don’t forget the fabulous wealth. Not everyone is privileged enough to sample the fruits of success however, and the difference between those who do and those who don’t is the focus of our discussion. What does it take to be successful? That’s the first question we must tackle in order to put success in its proper context. Success, as it’s perceived by the masses, is as subjective as picking the best color, meaning everyone has their own answer. To some, success is a bank account balance which looks like a phone number and a lifestyle to match. Others quantify success in less materialist, but no less grand way. A medical researcher who finds an effective new treatment for a disease, for example, would be a great success to many. Even students bringing home good grades are reaching success in their own way.
Everyone who has attained some level of success has probably also made their fair share of mistakes as well. Some may see making mistakes as bad, and they can be! But making mistakes can often times make you smarter, more motivated, and they allow you to tackle future problems with the experience of a wily veteran.
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Regardless of how you’ve achieved success in life, there’s a good chance the journey wasn’t always an easy one. Everyone who has attained some level of success has probably also made their fair share of mistakes as well. Some may see making mistakes as bad, and they can be! But making mistakes can often times make you smarter, more motivated and they allow you to tackle future problems with the experience of a wily veteran. Each time you avoid problems because you’re more experienced than those around you, that’s a success in and of itself. Those who strive for the top need to turn mistakes in opportunities. You need to adapt, you need to appreciate and you need to never lose faith in achieving your goals and proudly wearing the badge of success.
The keys to success aren’t about what you don’t know, it’s about what you do know. When you fail at success, it makes achieving it the second time around all the more sweet. There are three reasons why success is sweeter the second time around and they can all teach you something about coming back strong when life knocks you around at the start.
Learn From Your Mistakes
You’ve definitely heard it before, but it’s not just about learning from the errors we make on a daily basis, it’s about applying that knowledge in the most effective way moving forward. You’re going to screw up sometimes, it’s a fact of life. What you need to do is slow down, step back and figure out what caused that mistake in the first place. Was it a particular decision which led you astray? Ask yourself how the situation could have been avoided by doing something differently. When you get a better idea of how you went wrong, you can apply that failure to your next venture in order to reach success. When things go smoothly the next time, it’s because you were looking ahead, analyzing the facts, using your experience to make decisions which move your efforts forward, not back. When you finally get it right, the sweet flavor of success is well worth the wait.
Learning from your mistakes is about not making them a second time. We gain experience in everything we do, even our failures, and it’s how we use that experience moving forward on which our success can be measured.
Appreciate the Hard Times
For some, success is as simple as tying their shoes. Fame and fortune falls into their lap at an early age and it’s all peaches and cream from there. For the other 99% who are not as lucky, the road to success is long and uphill the whole way. Imagine you’re a mountain climber and you’ve spent months training to climb a tall mountain. You train hard, you don’t give up during the climb and reach the top just in time to see the sunset. Now imagine someone else takes a helicopter to the top to see the same sunset you’re looking at. The sunset is exactly the same, but you’d appreciate it so much more because you truly earned it. When you are dedicated, motivated and optimistic, good things will happen. You can look back on all the late nights of hard work and appreciate that it make you a better, more confident person today.
Climbing the mountain known as success is a great achievement and the view from the top is amazing. You can cheat to the top, but do you think it would be worth seeing a sunset you didn’t earn? You can appreciate how good success feels when your journey to the top was full of setbacks and failures. Look back and see how far you’ve come. You may even surprise yourself!
Feel the Confidence
Failure sucks, there’s no denying that. But the experience and confidence we gain from our failures are what eventually allow us to reach success when it’s all said and done. When you’re at the bottom looking up, it’s hard to have confidence, but once you realize that it’s the knowledge and experience you’ve gained at the bottom which will bring you up, anything is possible. Feel the confidence of knowing the right path and reaching your destination rather than watching others get there first. You have the wisdom of experience on your side and that is as good as any guide book. Trusting in yourself and believing in what you’re doing is what breeds confidence and when you have a tried and true plan for success in place, there isn’t much that can derail you.
Half confidence won’t do you any good. Full confidence will take you anywhere you want to go.
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Having confidence means having full trust in who you are, what you are doing and where you want to end up in life. Half confidence won’t do you any good. Full confidence will take you anywhere you want to go.
There are many ways to define success, but what makes someone successful is not that they reached the top, but what they overcame to get there. You need to learn from your mistakes, appreciate how challenging reaching goals can be and feel the boost of confidence which accompanies finally achieving success. Successful is one adjective we all want to be able to use when we describe ourselves. There are many keys to success and everyone is entitled to finding their own path. However, when you let your failures and all the times you came up short define who you are, there isn’t much hope at all. When you apply your knowledge and experience, only good things can happen. Use the confidence of experience to reach your goals and realize a level of success you can be happy with.
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