Overcoming Failure

Overcoming fear of failure is crucial for success. For many highly successful men and women who have accomplished great things in life, failure was merely a stepping stone to achieving greatness. Men like Henry Ford, Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison understood that failing to make the attempt is the 'real' failure and that doing nothing, begets nothing - least of all success. Women like Emily Dickinson and Marie Curie did not succeed initially and certainly had a more difficult time striving towards it in their day.

Why then would someone have a fear of failure?

Not knowing what it really takes to succeed. One reason is that many of us are so focused
on success and the appearances of it, that we forget what it really takes to achieve it.

We rarely think about failure as being a part of life and how many success stories have emerged from sheer failure. No one talks about how many times Abraham Lincoln failed at getting elected to office before he ended up becoming president (8), how Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard before becoming a sensation in the computer world, or how Michael Jordan failed to make his high school basketball team before becoming one of the greatest basketball players ever. In these times of fast media and instant news, we often see the glamorous side of success rather than the obstacles and hard work it takes to get there.

Having unrealistic expectations. We often expect to succeed on our first attempt at a venture and if we don't, we think we've failed. How realistic is that? Just because we failed a test, got passed over for a promotion, or didn't get a 'yes' asking that cute girl/guy for their phone number, does it mean we will never succeed at it? Not at all! Yet fear of rejection, or perceived failure, stops many from trying again.

The same applies in competitive sports. Athletes must learn to accept loss before they discover what it takes to win. In any sport, expecting to win from the onset is totally unrealistic. Failure is part of the process of learning how to win. Likewise, in the entertainment and music businesses. Most 'overnight' successes took years in the making before achieving high levels of success.

In his book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly talks about the "10,000-Hour Rule", in which he states that the key to success in any field is largely a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. As an example, he brings up that The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany alone over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time. He also points out that Bill Gates met the 10,000-Hour Rule when at the age of 13, he spent some 10,000 hours or more, learning programming on a high school computer that he managed to gain access to.

Needless to say, 10,000 hours of practicing anything would include many occurrences of failure, some frustration and falling short of goals.
 

Perfectionism. Some of us are afraid of failure because we believe we must be perfect. If we make an attempt and then fail at it, we risk looking foolish and therefore feel somehow flawed.  

For perfectionists everything must be done at a high level with no room for mistakes. They believe that if they can't get something done perfectly, they'd prefer not do it at all. Unfortunately, this type of thinking deprives the perfectionist of real learning and the benefits and value gained from experience. 

How to Overcome Fear of Failure

Only by overcoming fear of failure will anyone be able to achieve success in life. Here are some tips on how to eliminate fear and focus on success:

✓ Understand and expect that at times you will fail. Realize that you are human and humans make mistakes. Before any of us learned how to walk, we crawled. We got up, fell down, got up again and continued the process until we could walk expertly. 

✓ Don't take failure personally. Instead, view it as a stepping stone. Make certain you learn from it and then apply what you've learned to future situations. Refuse to consider it a character flaw or weakness. Doing so will only prevent you from achieving future success.

✓ No one succeeds all of the time, probably not even most of the time. In baseball, star players fail 70% of the time. Babe Ruth's batting average was .342 which means he struck out 66% of the time. Wayne Gretzky's career shooting percentage in hockey was 17.57% meaning he missed 82.43 % of the time. Wayne is also famous for saying "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." So it is in life. You won't fail at anything if you don't make the attempt. You also won't succeed!

✓ Remember that 'failure' has produced many successes. Consider how many people in history had failed before they became successful and quite likely because of it. Albert Einstein's teacher told him to quit school because; "Einstein, you will never amount to anything!" Ludwig Von Beethoven's music teacher said of him "as a composer, he is hopeless". Henry Ford's first two automobile companies failed.

✓ Appreciate the benefits of failure. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." In other words, your chances of getting things right on the first try are slim to none. The more you try, or experiment, the better you'll get at it.

✓ Believe in yourself. Rather than giving up when things don't work out, take it as an opportunity to build perseverance and resolve. Believe that you've got what it takes to work through the obstacles and difficult times. Remind yourself how many failures became successful because they wouldn't give up. The wonderful poem Don't Quit by Edgar Albert Guest is an inspiring illustration of that mindset.

The Benefits of Overcoming Failure

    * You build valuable experience and knowledge
    * You build strength of character and focus
    * You find more ways of being creative and sharpen your problem solving skills
    * It gives you an opportunity to redefine your goals or set upon a new path, if necessary
    * You build flexibility and open mindedness
    * You increase self-confidence and self-worth

"Failure is the foundation of success, and the means by which it is achieved."
Lao Tzu 

Article Source from: Essential Life Skills.

 

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Don’t let anyone steal your dreams..

By Jack Canfield

I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch in San Ysidro. He has let me use his house to put on fund-raising events to raise money for youth at risk programs.

The last time I was there he introduced me by saying, “I want to tell you why I let Jack use my house. It all goes back to a story about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy’s high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.

“That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200- acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch.

“He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, ‘See me after class.’

“The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, ‘Why did I receive an F?’

“The teacher said, ‘This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you’ll have to pay large stud fees. There’s no way you could ever do it.’ Then the teacher added, ‘If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade.’

“The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, ‘Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you.’

“Finally, after sitting with it for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all. He stated, ‘You can keep the F and I’ll keep my dream.’”

Monty then turned to the assembled group and said, “I tell you this story because you are sitting in my 4,000- square-foot house in the middle of my 200-acre horse ranch. I still have that school paper framed over the fireplace.” He added, “The best part of the story is that two summers ago that same schoolteacher brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week.” When the teacher was leaving, he said, ‘Look, Monty, I can tell you this now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of kids’ dreams. Fortunately you had enough guts not to give up on yours.’”

Don’t let anyone steal your dreams. Follow your heart, no matter what.

From Chicken Soup for the Soul
By Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

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Inspirational Stories I : Wilma Rudolph, An Olympic Wonder

By Ellesse

When I first read about Wilma Rudolph’s story, I suddenly remembered a primary school classmate (i.e. grade school) who also suffered from the same dreadful disease (i.e. Polio). I can’t help wondering how he is faring now. During that time, our classroom was located on the 1st level so that he could walk himself up using the railing as a support. All of us really admired his determination and perseverance then. So, no matter where he is or what he’s doing right now, I’m sure with the same tenacity he’ll be able to lead a very fulfilling life and achieve great things like Wilma Rudolph did. The context may be different but the spirit is the same.

This story is dedicated to him. And many others who believe that they can achieve extraordinary things in their lives.

“So I believed in my Mother” ~ Wilma Rudolph

When Wilma Rudolph’s mother was told by the doctors at the hospital that her daughter would never be able to walk again, she didn’t believe it. It was that disbelief that enabled her child to walk years later. It was that same disbelief that allowed America to enthrone the first woman in history to win 3 Olympic Gold medals in a row. One of the greatest inspirational stories of all time!

As a baby, Wilma was born 4.5 pounds and 2 months premature on June 23, 1940 in St Bethlehem, Tennesse. But unlike most premature babies, she recuperated at home since her family could not afford the hospitalization fees. Probably due to her weak constitution and the insufficient medical care, Wilma suffered from a series of childhood diseases such as mumps, chickenpox, scarlet fever and then double pneumonia and remained pretty much bedridden. It was when her left leg started to be deformed that her mother finally took her to the doctors in Nashville.

There and then, Wilma Rudolph was diagnosed to be suffering from Polio. Refusing to believe that her 20th child (out of 22 kids) would never walk again, her mother took her to the hospital for bi-weekly physiotherapy sessions religiously. Every session was a painful experience but Wilma persisted on, believing in her mother when she said she would walk again.

Unveiling the Competitive Streak in Her

By the time she was 6, Wilma Rudolph was given metal braces to aid her in walking. Though the braces were supposed to help her, she hated them. To her, those were chains that imprisoned her at home and away from school. She yearned to break though them, run around the yard and go to school like any of the neighbourhood kids. She wanted to be free.

It was during this time, that she got literally frustrated at life’s adversity and swore to herself that she would fight these diseases no matter what it might take. It was perhaps that same anguish that propelled her to rebel in a different way, revealing her competitive streak that would help her achieve the commendable success in her sport later on.

She started doing home physiotherapy with help from her siblings, and attending school a year later with the braces. A few years later, she awed everyone when she walked totally on her own, without any assistance into the church. She had won her first battle.

The Young Aspiring Sport Star

When she was in junior high, she joined the basketball team. Despite her pleas to play in the games, Wilma remained a reserve for 3 full years where she watched, observed and analyzed the games. Until she was probably as good as her coach! In her 4th year with the team, she finally made an appeal to be in the starting lineup and when her wish was finally granted, she dazzled everyone by leading the team to an undefeated season and the state championships. Though they lost the championship title in the end, Wilma Rudolph earned the attention of the women’s track coach, Ed Template at Tennessee State University and was invited to join the “Tigerbelles”, a premier women’s track & fields team in the region. At that time, she was only a high school student!

Joining the “Tigerbelles” gave her a different perspective. Running was no longer a gift that she took for granted like she used to when she won the tracks in school meets easily, as she lost every race in her first official track meet with the team. Her coach also made sure she worked hard. There was once when she was late for her training by half an hour and she had to run thirty laps as a punishment. One lap for every minute that she was late for. She also realized that she was being surpassed by athletes better trained than her. That kind of stimulated her competitive nature and sprung her into action, working with her coach closely to pick up breathing techniques and racing strategy, pace her starts which was her weakest area, and build up stamina and physical strength. At the same time, her mindset had also changed. No longer viewing her track seniors as hero's, she allowed herself to beat their timings.

Her efforts paid off as she turned out to be so good that the Tigerbelles invited her to join them in the 1956 heats for the national Olympics team. Not only did she make it into the team, she did well enough in the Melbourne Olympics to win a bronze in the 100-metres relay. At that time, she was only 16! When most of the girls her age were in high school mugging books and attending proms, she was already running for the Olympics! Although she did not win any of her own personal races, she vowed to be back in 1960, but not before being rewarded with a full scholarship by the Tennessee State to officially join the Tigerbelles as a result of her next 4 years’ training efforts.

Shining Through Rome 1960

She made it to the Rome Olympics to compete in 3 separate events. Although she suffered from a sprained ankle then, she did not let it affect her performance and shocked the world by winning in an amazing fashion, breaking the World record (even though it was disputed later due to a claim of the strong tailwind) and the Olympic record in both the 100-metre & 200-metre races respectively. Even during their first heats of their 400-metres relay, Wilma Rudolph and her teammates had already broken the World record. A win was imminent for them in the finals, if not for a bad baton pass resulting in Germany and Russia taking the lead. However, her strong will to win propelled her to catch up and still win the race at only 0.3 seconds ahead of the second placed runner.

Wilma Rudolph’s extraordinary achievements in Rome 1960 made her a darling of the European press who gave her the nickname “The Black Gazelle” and “The Black Pearl”. Undisputedly, she also became the first woman in American history to win 3 gold medals in the Olympics and was crowned “the Fastest Woman in the World”. Despite those, Wilma regarded her greatest tribute to be her homecoming parade in Tennesse. At that time, she proposed for the segregation laws for her homecoming events to be abolished and those were some of the first integrated events that the town has ever seen.

After that, Wilma Rudolph continued to be active in her sport mainly as a coach in high school track, sports commentator and mentor to famous African-American female athletes such as Jackie Joyner Kersee and Florence Griffith Joyner who became the next woman to win 3 gold medals. Both of them were remarkable women who were pretty much engaged in Wilma’s spirit, even when she died of brain cancer at 54 on Nov 12, 1994.

What Did I Learn From Wilma Rudolph?

Wilma Rudolph is a great reminder to us that we can overcome life’s adversity with determination and sheer will power. Some personal reflections :

(1) Your Reality is Formed By What You Think Not What Others Think

Now, if Wilma’s mother had believed in the doctors’ advice, what would have happened? Pardon me, I’m not trying to say doctors’ advice is not necessary or important. It is. But what I’m convey is this : restrictions set upon by others is merely a perception of what they think is right for you at that moment of time. It’s still your perception of your reality that determines the result. If you choose to assume theirs as yours, most likely you’ll find yourself living in someone’s expectations of you, both good or bad.

(2) Humility to Learn from Your Failures

Well, I shouldn’t even call them failures. They’re outcomes. Wilma easily picked herself up to learn from her competitors even after losing every race of her first official meet. While most people would shut themselves in their rooms, crying over their defeat, Wilma Rudolph spent her time analyzing areas that she was weak at (i.e. starts) and keep practicing until she got it right or even much better than her competitors. Frankly speaking, this is a true display of a strong psychological buildup. No, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s wrong to cry. When I got my posting results for my Preuniversity allocation, I cried a lot too. What I’m trying to say is, you can cry or do whatever it takes to get that frustration and sadness out of your system, but once you’re done, please remember there’s so much you can still learn from what you’ve just been through. Learning from your outcomes takes a lot of courage, I know. But the pain of not learning from them takes even more.

(3) Action & Persistence Are the Keys

Wilma had dreams, goals but it was not having dreams or goals that allowed her to have such achievements, it was action. She wanted to be able to walk like every kid on the block, so she worked on her therapy exercises and practiced walking without the braces. She wanted to be in the starting lineup for the basketball team so, she honed her techniques and acquired her coach’s analytical skills and fought for an opportunity to perform. She wanted to be win a gold medal for her races in the 1960 Olympics and hence, she kept a 4 year intensive training schedule! 4 years! How many of us have given up after just 6 months or even a month’s work on something we wanted to achieve? While watching the Chris Widener’s show on TSTN the other day, I also found out that Chris took 18 years get to where he is today, an author, show host, motivational speaker etc.

If you wonder why these people such as Chris or Wilma Rudolph have the patience to stick it thorough, it boils down to 1 thing: Burning desire. Ask yourself today, what is your burning reason? Or do you have one in the first place?

Article from http://www.goal-setting-college.com/inspiration/wilma-rudolph/


 

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Success Is 99% Failure: The Story of Soichiro Honda

What is a true winner? We may be very familiar of Honda Motors. They’re everywhere, from cars to motorcycles. But do you know the real story of how challenging it was for Mr. Soichiro Honda to establish Honda Motors?

Like most other countries, Japan was hit badly by the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1938, Soichiro Honda was still in school, when he started a little workshop, developing the concept of the piston ring.

His plan was to sell the idea to Toyota. He labored night and day, even slept in the workshop, always believing he could perfect his design and produce a worthy product. He was married by now, and pawned his wife’s jewelry for working capital.

Finally, came the day he completed his piston ring and was able to take a working sample to Toyota, only to be told that the rings did not meet their standards! Soichiro went back to school and suffered ridicule when the engineers laughed at his design.

He refused to give up. Rather than focus on his failure, he continued working towards his goal. Then, after two more years of struggle and redesign, he won a contract with Toyota.

By now, the Japanese government was gearing up for war! With the contract in hand, Soichiro Honda needed to build a factory to supply Toyota, but building materials were in short supply. Still he would not quit! He invented a new concrete-making process that enabled him to build the factory.

With the factory now built, he was ready for production, but the factory was bombed twice and steel became unavailable, too. Was this the end of the road for Honda? No!

He started collecting surplus gasoline cans discarded by US fighters – “Gifts from President Truman,” he called them, which became the new raw materials for his rebuilt manufacturing process. Finally, an earthquake destroyed the factory.

After the war, an extreme gasoline shortage forced people to walk or use bicycles. Honda built a tiny engine and attached it to his bicycle. His neighbors wanted one, and although he tried, materials could not be found and he was unable to supply the demand.

Was he ready to give up now? No! Soichiro Honda wrote to 18,000 bicycles shop owners and, in an inspiring letter, asked them to help him revitalize Japan. 5,000 responded and advanced him what little money they could to build his tiny bicycle engines. Unfortunately, the first models were too bulky to work well, so he continued to develop and adapt, until finally, the small engine ‘The Super Cub’ became a reality and was a success. With success in Japan, Honda began exporting his bicycle engines to Europe and America.

End of story? No! In the 1970s there was another gas shortage, this time in America and automotive fashion turned to small cars. Honda was quick to pick up on the trend. Experts now in small engine design, the company started making tiny cars, smaller than anyone had seen before, and rode another wave of success.

Today, Honda Corporation employs over 100,000 people in the USA and Japan, and is one of the world’s largest automobile companies. Honda succeeded because one man made a truly committed decision, acted upon it, and made adjustments on a continuous basis. Failure was simply not considered a possibility.

Article from:

inspirationalstories.com

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Failure is never failure.

By Brian G. Jett

Failure separates those who think they want success from those who are determined to win. Failure narrows the playing field. The first people out are those that blame others, next out are those who lost interest. The weak go first. The strong learn to hang in there and keep bouncing back until they win.”The thin-skinned rarely win due to brittle egos and apprehensive attitudes. Thick skin comes from falling and failing. The falls produce wounds that heal and reveal a connection between resiliency and a peculiar resolve which accepts failure as a temporary condition.

They accept both good and bad so not to forfeit the blessing of learning from both.The thick-skinned prepare to win by increasingly expanding their willingness to endure pain in affirming the degree of true desire. They allow every challenge as opportunity in changes for better. They continue to learn that bitterness is poison and quickly purge its deadly influence on both their endurance and desire. They see a prize in every problem and potential in every person. They see their faults but never focus on them. They know that whatever is on the mind will eventually get in the mind. The power of positive word choice determines each choice of the next deed. Wasting time talking about everything that cannot change and about nothing that can is pointless. They don’t get mad; they get glad.

They don’t deny their feelings nor recklessly rely on their feelings. They acknowledge their fears yet have learned to take action in spite of them. They don’t deny an awful diagnosis but do reject the verdict of a bad prognosis. Quitting isn’t part of their vocabulary and thus they find winning a natural offspring of the power they choose to give words. They know they must master their emotions rather than allow rude and raw emotions to master them.

Failure has yet to kill them and success has never defined them. They’ve been given the gift of get up, get over, and get on with whatever or whoever even hints at hindering them. There can be no real loss for them as they love to learn from each loss experienced. Isn’t this a win-win way of referencing a world they’ve already begun to better? Whether a race is won or lost, they understand that their response to either outcome reveals their character, which is the best way to continue to build it. They don’t let what will one day rot rule the winning Spirit in them that cannot.They don’t allow pride to drive them away nor shame to keep them away from the next opportunity or opposition. Failure drives the fear out and frees the winner inside to fully reside. They move forward by faith and don’t need to see goodness to believe it’s already come to pass.

Which one will you become? It’s a choice and no one can make it for you. You are a winner whether you accept it as truth or not. Gnawing on your not all that bad past is a sorrowful manner in which to pass your time. Time will deaden the measure of your regret. Yet, only the proper view of what God’s victorious vision has always been for your future may be belated. We don’t fear failure but we do use it as the excuse as to why we may never win. Such silly thinking helps the thin-skinned justify their active involvement in doing nothing. Criticism isn’t the culprit and yesteryear isn’t the enemy. Waiting around for something good to happen could happen but it won’t and that’s what’s worrying you.

What’s happening to you while you wait for nothing to beget nothing? I’ll tell you: The enemy within you dims the light you’d like to lose. But, you’re scared to death you actually might be forced to become part of this living. And with living, there will be your own higher expectations you will want to meet but maybe you’re still stuck in “Have To” land. Allow me to forewarn you, it’s a desert full of discouragement not brought about by circumstances gone awry, but a lie that your expectations will probably be at the level of your limitations. Acknowledge your real fear and you will take action in spite of it.

Guess what? You are “It” or are you?

Brian G. Jett

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Do You Beat Yourself Up When You Suffer From a Setback?

By Reza Ali

Have you suffered from a setback lately? Is it still haunting you? Do you ever wonder why setbacks are sometimes so painful? We are creatures of success. It's built within us. It's comes naturally to us. Our brain is wired in such a way that if we set a clear (and I mean crystal clear) goal, our brain will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal for us. That being the case, Why is it that we sometimes suffer a setback? Well. Why we fail and suffer a setback is a different conversation between us. What I'd like to write about today is what to do (and what not to do) when we suffer setbacks in our life.

Let me be brutally honest with you.When we suffer setbacks, the most immediate feeling that we feel is anger. This anger has it roots in the fact that we are creatures of success. When we perceive ourselves as failing because of a setback, we are in effect going against our nature to be successful. After all, I hope you would agree that it is not in our nature to fail. It is in our nature to succeed. When we go against our nature to succeed, our anger arises. Anger in itself is not something bad or something to fear. There is such a thing as constructive anger as it increases our adrenaline and pushes us harder and further (if you know how to use anger to your advantage). Anger becomes destructive when we don't know how to manage it. One thing I've learned about managing anger is that we have to channel it somewhere. When we don't consciously channel it constructively, our anger will find its own channel (and it isn't pretty). The most immediate and normal way our anger channels itself is to direct it towards ourselves and we do that by self blame. We start to think that we are hopeless at things and if it happens enough times, we begin to consider ourselves as losers and failures. We begin to think that we are the ones that caused the setback.

One of the most destructive consequences of our anger (at ourselves) is to beat ourselves up. When we are angry is to beat ourselves up. I used to beat myself up (literally) all the time. Sometimes my anger at myself can be so severe that I would beat my head against the wall or even use my own fist.If we don't beat ourselves up another channel that our anger finds is to direct it against someone else and we could end up beating them up (metaphorically of course although it's been known to happen literally too). Most often this poor soul that bears the brunt of our anger is someone close to us. Consider your loved ones and ask yourself, have they been the channel for my anger when I suffer a setback. It hurts when we realized they have been. So now is the time to start learning how not to do that.

Now, I don't have to tell you that beating ourselves up is not a strategy that leads to success. There is no growth in the act. There is no learning in the act and most likely it will happen over and over again. I've discovered a lot of ways to handle things when we suffer a setback and one of the ways I will share here is to find a channel for your anger and one of the easiest way to channel anger is to express it.

Expressing it can sometimes be made just by saying to someone 'I am angry at what just happened'. I find that even those simple words can go a long way towards channeling my anger constructively. Other ways include writing it down, or even saying it out loud to myself. Whatever you choose to do it, the goal here is to express and acknowledge that you are angry. Many people judge anger to be a bad thing. It's only when I stop viewing anger as a 'bad' emotion that I was able to express it. Just accept that you are feeling certain emotions and don't judge the emotions as good or bad. Emotions are neither good or bad. They are just something you experience.

When you begin to channel your anger constructively, you will start feeling calmer. And you will stop beating yourself (or others) up.

Setbacks are an important aspect of growth and success. Without setbacks, we don't truly know how far we can go. The most successful people in the world are successful not because they learned how to avoid setbacks. Instead they learn how to recover from it. It's a skill that you can definitely master.

So channel your anger properly and stop beating yourself up. When you do, setbacks becomes a learning experiences and will be the cause of many learning as well as much of your growth.There's going to be one beautiful day when you will recognize that the setbacks were probably the best thing that happened to you.

Want more? Go to www.rezaali.net for more.

2011 Reza Ali. All Rights Reserved.

Reza Ali is a writer, speaker, seminar leader and coach who resides in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Through his workshops, articles, seminars, speeches and coaching programme Reza shares his take on change and how we can use change to achieve anything we want in life.

To learn more and get other content of value, please visit his website at http://www.rezaali.net.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Reza_M_Ali

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Facing Fear Of Failure

By Glen D. Williams 

We've all experienced some form of fear of failure while growing up or as an adult. It stops some of us from even trying, while others try half-halfheartedly, undermining their own success and confirming their fear. I've done both in so many areas of life, I thought it would be helpful for me to share some of my fears with you, along with some insights to help you with yours. We'll look at what fear of failure really is, how it affects our motivation and what to do to face the fear and build success upon success.

Fear Of Failure: is a phobia...actually, many phobias related to performance anxiety. It can present itself in sporting events, love life, business, school, church...anywhere. I've had serious anxiety in all of the above. I've "choked" under pressure in sporting events, singing, speaking, asking girls out, or to dance. I can remember anxiety as early as elementary school, where, even though I knew the answers, I couldn't put them on the board or speak them when called upon. As I got older, I was able to force myself to do some of these things despite my fears, though, I couldn't have told you how, at the time.

Anxiety And Motivation: What I eventually learned was that anxiety destroys motivation. As we see the potential emotional devastation of failure, the price of trying seems too high...so we turn back. Every time we turn back, we strengthen the emotional wall between us and our goals. Enough times turning back and we'll eventually stop trying completely. This is how anxiety can lead to depression. Depressed people just look like they don't care...they probably care so deeply they shut themselves off. To avoid an imagined hurt, people who suffer from depression and anxiety live in a real hurt...it's an amazing thing. Once, I was so afraid of failing in a full-time sales business I had started, I spent at least a week in bed, curled up in a fetal position, crying myself to sleep. Fear Of Failure can rob you of the motivation to even try...which guarantees...failure. To get over this, we need to find something that inspires us to take risk and then develop an innovative plan to minimize the risk.

Finding Inspiration: isn't as easy as it sounds for a lot of people. In affairs of the heart, most of us see the prize as so valuable we become inspired to great risk. Other areas aren't so easy. With my business, I discovered money was not a good enough motivator for me to be willing to risk. Strangely enough, I became profitable in business only when I found out I was far more inspired to help people than to make a sale. Helping people get what they want, helping them overcome a financial difficulty and find solutions to life problems was what really drove me. Once I discovered helping people was what inspired me, I was willing to risk failure. What drives you? Let yourself off the hook of performance pressure for a few weeks and try to discover what moves you. Is it the approval of a loved one, your name on the door, receiving an award, seeing your daughter graduate college, finally being out of debt, helping others achieve their dreams? Collect up all those things that drive you. Think back over your life and picture the things you feel were accomplishments that made you feel fulfilled...these are your inspirations. Once you have a good picture of your inspiration, you're ready for the easy part, growing with innovation.

Growing With Innovation: establishing and carrying out an innovative plan to face down your fears one by one, using small, painless, almost risk-free steps. My fear of failure in sales was complicated by fear of people, making it extremely difficult for me to imagine ever selling to enough people to earn a profit. So, from the day I finally got out of bed, I broke down my job into stages...greet people, meet people, get phone numbers, make appointments, make sales. At first, I only concerned myself with greeting people. I even used my aerobic walk every morning to practice smiling and waving at people. In a few weeks, I was ready to go out in public and personally meet people...a few a day and gradually more. Then, I did the same thing with getting contact info, calling, selling, group presentations, etc. I've now spoken to groups over 1,000, founded 3 profitable businesses and 2 non-profit corporations, but it started with a little man frozen in fear, crying himself to sleep.

Your innovation will be based on what it is, specifically, you're afraid of. You must develop your own plan, starting where you're comfortable and slowly growing and stretching yourself until you can repeatedly face down your fear without hesitation. Let me promise a few things, so you won't be surprised. The only way to defeat fear is to face it. Courage is not fearlessness! No one is free of fear. Courage is going on despite fear, to accomplish your dreams. The steps I've recommended are designed to help you face your fears and respond to them differently. Instead of stopping or turning around, you'll still sense the fears but, with practice, be able to dismiss them and move forward. Also, as you're moving forward, you will certainly stumble and fall and embarrass yourself and others along the way. Welcome to life! The absence of struggle is death! "The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions." Alfred Addler. If you're truly in fear of failure, consider this...The only way you can fail is by not continuing to try.

Glen Williams is founder and CEO of E-Home Fellowship (EHF), Inc. and Webmaster for http://www.way2hope.org He has been helping people with family and life problems full-time since 1989. You can comment on his articles at Way2Hope Family Life Forums.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Glen_D._Williams

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5 Reasons Failure Is OK!

By Andrew James Miller

We've all seen it during our school days. The giant red F at the top of the page of homework, or a test. Even if you went through school with a 4.0 (you perfectionist, you) you probably have had nightmares about how soul-crushing it would be to get one. I got one F during my entire academic career (math test), and I remember exactly what it looked like, and its position on the page. It's seared into my memory, because of what it stood for: failure. Of course, the really insidious thing about failure is it causes another F - fear. Fear is like a decease, crippling and devastating if allowed to run rampant in the human frame. So, to avoid fear, we should do everything we can to avoid failure, right? Wrong. I think we need to embrace failure. Failure's ok, and I'll tell you why.

1. You learn from failure.
-Success doesn't teach you half of what failure teaches you. Failure shows you what you have yet to learn, ways you can improve, and (if you let it) can be the best stepping stone to success. However, if you take your failure personally and refuse to learn from it, the would-be stepping stone gets tied around your neck and you get hurled into the ocean. You have to be able to step back from the inherent emotional risks of failure and look for the lessons, or fear will consume you. You must also remember that failure will tend to effect you emotionally if you stake your entire identity on the project in question: be sure to work towards success in other areas of your life so a failing in one can be taken as a learning experience; it's difficult to learn when your entire foundation for your identity has dropped out.

2. Failures show that you're pushing yourself.
-People who push the boundaries of their talents and constantly learn and grow tend to succeed. If you haven't made a mistake, had a failure, you're probably staying well within your comfort zone and not fulfilling your potential. If something scares you, do it. Fear of failure can be crippling, but only if you run away from it. If you run towards the projects you fear the most, you'll grow exponentially. Yes, you might fail dismally, but you might be more creative and ingenious than you think and be able to figure it out. Either way, you've learned and grown, if you have the right attitude about failure.

3. Small failures keep you from catastrophic failures.
-Once you make a mistake on a small scale and learn from it, you are unlikely to make the same mistake on a larger scale. Imagine a visionary architect who sets out to build a building that seems impossible to most other architects. He draws dozens of pictures of the building, and is constantly changing and refining his design. He builds scale models. He shows the ideas to his friends and illicit their advice. He does the math, researches different building materials and finally has the complete picture and builds the impossible building. What's he done here? He's essentially failed over and over again. When his colleagues tell him a certain part of the building won't work, he's failed a little bit. As he draws and refines the building, the design changes as he fails to get the correct design, over and over again. Perhaps he has to scrap the whole basis of the idea and start clean.He failed. Perhaps he realizes while he's making the scale models that something aspect of the building needs to change. Back to the drawing board, he's failed. But finally, when he's done due diligence and the building is built, it's beautiful. It's a success. All the small setbacks and mistakes - all of the small failures - have kept the final building from being a failure. Imagine if the architect just went to the building site and winged it. He would be pulling a lot of nails.

4.Failures change your behavior for good.
-Speaking of architects, there's a house in town that is a fine example of a huge, resounding failure. It's a big, beautiful high-end house, and it sits, nearly finished, on a mound of dirt in a nice section of town. The exterior is done, all of the new windows are in. But they've halted production; the inside may never be finished, and the yard has gone to weeds. Why? There's a limit set by the local homeowner's association as to how tall a house can be, and this house exceeds the limit by several feet. Construction has been halted indefinitely. Now, you would think that someone would have checked the requirements for houses in the neighborhood - the contractor, the architect, the unfortunate people who are paying for this mess - but no one did, and now this huge, expensive, failure of a house sits vacant in the lot, while the weeds grow up around it.

But let me ask you: if these people ever build another house, do you think they'll forget to check? Not a snowball's chance in July. The extremely expensive mistake they made (Dave Ramsey calls it "Stupid Tax") has indelibly burnt this into their minds. They probably would check the policies multiple times, consult and throughly impress the fact that their house must be under a certain hight with the architect, and be out on the building site with a tape measure, just to make sure. They will never make the same mistake again, because their failure has changed their behavior. Pain has a way of doing that.

5."Remember that failure is an event, not a person." - Zig Zigler
-This is very important for your well-being. You're not a failure. You have to impress this into your mind. Write it on your hand. Put it on your desktop. This idea gives you permission to try as hard as you can and fail miserably. It's ok, you're not a failure. You can just try again. Finished your first novel and everyone who reads it tells you not to quit your day job? It's ok, the novel may have failed, but you aren't a failure. You can go on to the next thing, and the next thing, as many as it takes. Labels are hard to get rid of, but events you can move past really quickly. Failure is an event. Accept it as it is, learn what you can, change your behavior if needed, and keep moving.
What happened after I got the F on the math test? I went crazy. I'm no morning person, but I started getting up a 6:00 to do a set of math problems every morning. I made flash cards. I wrote down everything the teacher said. I aced the next test. I was able to learn from the failure, and was better off for it.
Andrew Miller is an artist and writer devoted to helping other artists overcome their creative blocks, even while overcoming his own. If you would like more free, awesome info that will help you revitalize your artistic career, overcome creative blocks, and discover (or rediscover) your passion for art, check out http://www.artisticadd.com. If you would like more articles like this delivered to your mailbox, sign up here: http://eepurl.com/esnFk


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_James_Miller

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Why? Finding a Deepest Reason to Be Successful!

By Clodualdo Burdeos

In pursuing your dreams, there will be a time we will get exhausted or burnout. We feel that we did everything but nothing happens. Then doubting ourselves will enter into our mind. We fill that we can't reach it and start to have fear. But if you have a reason, I mean a deep reason. You will never be stop by any circumstances that you will encounter in your life. Reason actually is your motivation to move forward and your energizer.

I'll share you my reason why I still continue no matter how hard it is. My reason it's not just to make money. Not just to buy everything I want. Not to be famous and achieve appreciation. My reason is my family. They give me strength and motivation whenever the going gets tough. I don't want to be poor for the rest of my life and my next generation. I want to change my life. I do this because for my future. To buy what my family wants. I do this thing because for them. It's like in this scenario. If you see your love ones, they were torturing by another person and your only option to save them is to replace them. Ask yourself and look in the mirror. What will you do? Maybe some of you will be mad and angry. Maybe some of you will be selfish and will not take their place. But for me, I'll replace them. Why? I'd rather be in pain than seeing them in pain. I'd rather be hurt than seeing them hurting. I'd rather be tired, ignored and exhausted because I do these things for them. There are times you cannot do anything because of lack of resources like when one of your family get sick and you have to bring them to hospital but you don't have enough money and you can't do anything. A hurtful event but it happens.

And this hurtful event that I don't want to experience again in the near future that's why all of this is my reason to strive harder and move forward no matter how difficult it was and no matter what setbacks I encounter. Then I write my reason in a piece of paper and put them where I could see them always. And I also have a picture of my love ones on my wallet. So whenever I was down and I feel hopeless and I feel I want to give up. I put out the picture and look to it. Then tell myself, I was doing it for them and suddenly I was motivated again.
Look for a reason and I'll end this with a question. Before you go to bed tonight, look at your love ones and ask yourself if this is the life you want for them. Then if not, look for an opportunity to change where you are right now. Don't do it for you, do it for them.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clodualdo_Clody_Burdeos

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What You Made Of? Fear, Doubt and Limitations

By Clodualdo Clody Burdeos

When we are born, we are all winners. We learned to walk no matter how many times we stumbled. We learned to talk no matter how difficult it was. We learned new knowledge and new things without any limitations. We dreamed of a lot of things. We are full of curiosity and always ask a lot of question and always look for an answer.

But as we grow up, life experiences and interaction with others teach us to set limitations to ourselves. We are now program that this is the only thing we can do. We are now afraid of a lot of things and become fearful. We lost the art of asking question because of the fear of rejection. We lost our focus on our dreams. We became unhappy of what's life all about. We tend to escape from our problems rather than facing it. We lost our confidence and self-esteem. We avoid failure rather than welcoming it.

As we grow old, looking back on the things that past. We regret that we never take action to reach our dream. We ask ourselves these questions. What if I made sacrifices in exchange for the things I want to do? What if I didn't listen to what other will say? What if I exerted a little effort and look for a better opportunity? What If set goals in my life? What if I commit to it and do whatever it takes to get my dream? I shouldn't have waste a lot of time on the things that are not important and regret every minute of your life.

This is the cycle of life? Most people who lived in the fear of rejection and fear of failure, they live in the life of regrets. Always looking back and dwell on the past. To avoid this, we have to look deep inside ourselves and analyze what we are really made of. Always keep in mind that life is a one continuous mistake for us to learn to be perfect.

Who I am and what I do? An ordinary person who do extraordinary things.
 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clodualdo_Clody_Burdeos

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Failure Is a Great Teacher

By Clodualdo Clody Burdeos

When I start to be in business I assure myself that I would not fail because I was thinking of what other would say if I fail. Looking back at my first business decision, I have to chuckle at how naive I was. I know that to be successful, failure is a part of it. I mean there is no possible way you can be successful without first failing. Failing is actually the great motivator of all, where it will build your character or break you.

Think of this. How perfume derived from flowers? The flowers have to be crushed first before we can actually get the perfume from it. You see, it is the process of crushing. These are failing experiences that will bring out the best in us in order for us to be successful. But it's not easy you're going to have people telling you cannot do what you're striving so hard to do and that your going to fail. Those are dream stealer, they want you to fail. Don't listen to them and keep going.

Learned from what IBM Thomas Watson said "Most people make a common mistake by thinking of failure as the enemy of success. You've got to put failure to work for you. Go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you'll find success-on the far side of failure". This word come from a very successful person who encounter a lot of failure and still keep moving when going gets tough.We have to realize that in order to be successful in any aspects of life, we must encounter setbacks or experience failure.We must learned from them and never make the same mistake again. We have to be proud that we fail. The real shame is if you do not take that wisdom you learned from your mistakes and apply it on your next try. The worst thing is that if you fail and don't learn at all. Like what Mary Pickford said "If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. "What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down". She was concern of getting up or bouncing back and learn from them rather than staying down. See that differences. Do you see the difference in that type of mindset? Step out and dare to fail.If you're willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed interestingly.

Remember that good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clodualdo_Clody_Burdeos

  

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