An excerpt for you from Dream Come True…enjoy!
The road to success is full of potholes and detours.
Beautiful someone, there’s a reason this became a cliché — it’s because it’s true!
It’s a bumpy road no matter where we’re headed. We know that, I mean it makes sense. But it’s easier to know than it is to handle. Who actually wants to accept tough times and frustrating days as givens in life?
The problem is, no matter how hard we try to avoid them, mistakes and bad days find us anyway. We say the wrong thing. Get distracted online and waste massive amounts of time. Fall asleep when we should be studying. Make the wrong decision, sometimes even when we’re trying our hardest. Things happen, too — the flat tire, the email that didn’t go through, the critical appointment we miss.
To all this, let’s say a very loud and clear: SO WHAT?!
So we didn’t get the opportunity, raise, or the credit we deserved. Got turned down for the loan. Missed the call because we got distracted and just plum forgot. Ate a whole row of Oreos. Said something we regret. Didn’t ask the right question. Bought a ridiculously expensive pair of shoes that we don’t actually like but can’t return.
Because here’s the truth: no setback, no disappointment, no “failure” has the power to derail us unless we give it that power by seeing it as a destination, a parking lot instead of a rest stop.
A lifetime instead of just a tough year.
A reason to stop instead of a lesson we can use to keep going, only smarter and stronger than before.
It’s up to us
Here’s the thing: it’s our choice. How we see an experience IS the experience to us. If we label something a failure, it IS one. If we label it a learning experience, it IS one. Same exact experience. Totally different value in our lives. And totally up to us what we want it to be.
The stuff we label “failure” makes us look backward, and it has no value, no purpose except to make us feel bad. (“Oh please! Sit down, would you? You’re never going to get it!”)
The stuff we call “lessons” is forward-facing and has amazing value. It automatically communicates to us that the future can be better than the past. We are free to invent and create, and to use everything that’s happened to us to do it. Lessons are wisdom and dreams in the making. (“What’d ya learn? Awesome! How can you use that?”)
From failure to really good info
How do we go from calling things failures to seeing them as lessons? Super simple: first be grateful that they happened in the first place, and then INSIST that they teach us something. Tough experiences give us some of the greatest, most unique, most important lessons we could ever have. They get our attention. Yank the slack out of us. Show us who our true friends are. Let us see what we’re are capable of.
When potholes and detours show up:
- Ask yourself my favorite post-mistake questions: “What did I learn?” “How would I have liked this to go?” “What will I do next time to get this better result?” “What small step can I take right now to set this better result in motion?”
- Then, don’t hesitate: regain your momentum by jumping right back in with some action…
…and keep on moving!