I heard mass this morning and interestingly, I found today's homily very meaningful.
The officiating priest posed a question, what do you fear the most? What is your greatest fear?
According to the priest, a survey conudcted by Wall Street Journal to some random 10,000 people show that the three things that people fear the most are as follows: (3) death / kamatayan, (2) loneliness / kalungkutan and lastly, (1) failure / kabiguan.
For this entry though, I'd like to ponder on the fear of failure. Coincidentally, the fear of failure is something which I think I have been subconsciously worrying about all this time. Well actually, only since I started to make my way to the real world - the corporate world, that is. I mean, I knew I was often anxious or worried about something but I never really thought about it concretely or in this way. Well, not until now.
The priest said the quickest road to failure is as follows: to give up right away, self-pity and self-centeredness. And you know what, I couldn't agree more. Whoever said life is going to be easy anyway? We just need to keep the faith. We need to have a strong faith in ourselves and most importantly, in God.
Rather than giving my two cents worth on the given subject, here's an article I stumbled upon which says it all already and which I believe makes perfectly good sense. It's a little long but if you're currently in dire need of some source of inspiration then read on buddy! ;)
DEALING WITH SO-CALLED FAILURE
by Jeffery Combs
What makes the difference between ordinary and extraordinary, between average and excellent, mediocre and superb? Is it family background? Are achievers born into wealth? Is it better opportunities for certain people? Opportunity is a strange thing because two people with similar gifts, talents and resources can look at a situation and one person will see tremendous opportunity while the other is negative and skeptical. One man's junk is another man's jewel. Opportunity is like beauty. It's in the eye of the beholder.
Is achievement gained because of hardship or because of lack of hardship? Is it high morals or how about a great education? Perhaps here is the great secret. Well, I believe it is none of these items. The bottom line that separates those who achieve from those who don't is different perceptions and responses to what many people consider failure. Nothing else has such a dramatic impact on people's ability to achieve and to accomplish whatever they set out to accomplish. There are literally thousands of ways to become a winner and the sure way I know of to stay average is to fail and not investigate what you gained from the apparent failure. Through trial and error, I eventually taught myself how to view, what most people say is failure, differently. I taught myself that everything happens for a reason.
When a situation or a circumstance happens and it doesn't appear favorably for me at that moment, I have learned to detach, pull back, instead of over-reacting to the circumstances. By detaching, I'm talking about the thought process I now take now rather than the ones I used to take before. There are many situations you cannot change but you can definitely change how you view them, especially related to what most people perceive to be failure. I ask people all the time who say they've failed, I say, "Have you really? Did you really fail?" Then I ask them the next question - "What did you gain, who did you meet, how did it develop character, what happened because of the situation?"
I thoroughly believe that for every door that closes, a new window opens. I have seen many average people who have never had success in any other endeavors have fantastic success in direct sales, networking or in any kind of small business. I have also seen many people who have success in a corporate environment fail miserably as an entrepreneur. To a large extent, the reason the failure rate is so high in free enterprise is that we as a society are not prepared and not mentally conditioned to deal with the inevitable emotional roller coaster of entrepreneurship. We are taught through education, training, college, other schooling and on the job training to become good employees. We end up learning job skills, not the free thinking skills that lead to success as an entrepreneur. Most of all we are not taught how to look at our mistakes and failures properly. Once again, I believe there is no such thing as failure. Every blade of grass we walk upon brings us to this moment which is officially called now, the present, or officially now o'clock.
I have personally attended hundreds of seminars, rallies and conventions over the last several years and have heard the stories and testimonies of people who have succeeded. It often looks easy from the audience perspective to make a $10,000 per month check or have a $100,000 per year. I remember in my early career, seeing these people and saying to myself, that if they can do it, so can I. They are no different. That was true, except the difference between them and me was a few key points that I had to learn in the journey. Skills such as developing a belief, understanding how to market myself, how to be consistent, how to be self-motivated over time to create what is called compounding. Internal compounding is going to be the difference between average and exceptional. Internal compounding really begins with you becoming comfortable with yourself - becoming the person you deserve to be, really having a belief in yourself, a sense of certainty that no matter what obstacles, what roadblocks, what challenges, what hurdles arrive in your way, you begin to turn roadblocks into building blocks.
You're going to learn a different perception of challenges and overcoming them right now. Most important, with simple disciplines, learned, acquired and then diligently and consistently applied over a period of time, you start to release yourself from the attachment of what most people consider to be failure. Personal growth coupled with a plan of action. Diligent and consistent action to produce results not only in yourself, but with others, too. The heart of a champion, developing heart rather than just relying on your talent.
Do not compare yourself to others. You never know the price someone has paid to get to their promised land, and they did pay it at one time or another. Even the statement, "paying the price" is unusual. A good friend and motivational speaker once said to me, "Jeff, it's not a price, it's a privilege." Indeed, my friends that is a whole different perspective. Are you really paying a price or is it a privilege to be going through the process that you are going through? Most importantly, it is imperative that you start to view your past failures differently and change how you view challenges and obstacles that face you today and in the future.
One of the most common problems I see in free enterprise and entrepreneurship is that people quit too soon. Not only to do they quit too soon, they never even start and they often quit too easily and too often. They then go back to what already wasn't working for them, usually a job, and give up on their dreams. I have found that if you don't have dreams, you end up working for people who do. In a job, typically, you're creating someone else's dream and that's not to say that jobs are bad, but will you ever get your promised land, producing results for someone else in their dream? That is an interesting question. Success isn't always easy is it? And definitely not a sprint, it's a marathon. Most people quit in free enterprise in their first 90 days, six months or one year. This is a usual pattern for most people; they don't stay in the game long enough to learn the survival skills required to win the game of their life. They dabble, they give it a shot, they try, they wish, they hope, they'd like to, they think about it, they take little action, get their feelings hurt, test the water and, most of all, treat it like a hobby, then it costs them enough money, so they quit and say, "It didn't work for me" or "I got burned."
Free enterprise is about going through mind shifts, evolutions of new consciousness, getting out of the box, off the sidelines, in the game, playing offense rather than defense, learning life skills so that you can get paid what you are worth. It is the opportunity to win the game of life on your terms, in your time frame. Quitters never win and winners never quit. Winners learn how to fail more intelligently. Isn't it time you learned how to treat failure differently? Isn't it time you changed how you've been changing?
