Why You Need To Embrace Failure
By Gregory McGuire
You ever see those people who succeed in everything they try? I sometimes wonder if this is just an illusion. For instance, a former upline member seemed to possess this quality. There was nothing he couldn”t do. Every ad he placed netted him at least 3 or 4 downline members. When I asked him about his golden touch, however, he just laughed.
He read to me a list of all the books he”d read. They ranged from marketing to personal development to copywriting. He told me of all the seminars he”d attended.
Still, after all that work, he fell flat on his face repeatedly for years. All he learned from books and seminars was just theory. The real learning doesn”t happen until you get out there and do it.
He related to me his multiple failures. Entire downlines quitting. Surprisingly, though, he told me he never even once seriously considered giving up. What he told me is something I”ll never forget. He said that of all those seminars and books that he”d read, his most effective teacher was failure.
When I thought about it, I could definitely relate. My first marriage ended mostly because of neglect. On my part. I was a loner, and never showed any interest in changing my ways. Needless to say, the marriage didn”t last very long. I learned.
Today, I”m very conscious of my wife’’s needs, and am always here for her.
I look at failure as a process of elimination. If I fail at something, I look at my approach and recognize that that’’s the wrong way to achieve my objective. Does that mean I can”t do it? Of course not. I just can”t do it that way. This is where your creative juices start to flow, which is nothing but good.
When I was a personal trainer, I used to teach people to lift to failure. That just means lift the weight as many times as you can until you physically cannot do one more rep. This gives you realistic idea about your true abilities. If you don”t push your limits, how do you know how far you can actually go? Yet, if you do push your limits, eventually, you”ll fail. Which is a good thing. Right?
If you fear failure or rejection you”ll never really know your limitations. You will have imposed false boundaries, and never reach your true potential. You will always wonder, “What if?”
People who fail constantly, and learn from those failures are some of the strongest people I”ve ever met. They”re the true pioneers. They”re the bushwackers who lead the way, getting slapped in the face by branches and stumbling over rocks. Sometimes they fall. But if they come this way again, they”ll not only be able to avoid the same hazards, they”ll also lead others down the path of least resistance.
If you don”t fail, you don”t learn, and you don”t really live life at all. If all we did was succeed, we”d learn nothing, and our character would be extremely weak.
Seek out opportunities to fail. In the long run, you”ll be glad you did.
About The Author
Gregory McGuire is a successful network marketer and hypnotherapist living in Smyrna, Tennessee.
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