HOW TO FAIL PROPERLY

Have you ever failed at anything?

I have, many, many times with all sorts of things. From marriage to business to striving for certain goals.

Have you ever succeeded at anything?

I have, many, many times with all sorts of things. From marriage to business to striving for certain goals. Hmm, sounds like the first answer. That’s because it is. No I’m not spinning failure into success. I’m being literal, I have failed and I have succeeded – at the same things.

Let me explain…

My first marriage ended after a year – on anyone’s terms that’s a pretty miserable fail, right? Yeah, at the time it was painful and I felt like a miserable failure. But, after a short time me and my ex-wife actually became friends again, initially for the sake of our daughter, but eventually because it made sense to put the past behind us, learn from it, move on – but most importantly for me – to keep what was good about it. Me and my ex were friends first, so it made sense for me to retain that part.

25 years later we’re still friends and I like to think that our daughter benefitted from the ‘good’ relationship we made. And she has grown into a beautiful, kind, loving mother herself now. HUGE Success

Now I’m married again and it’s great. So now I like to think I’m a success at marriage (ask my wife for a true opinion). 🙂

So other failures…

I started my own business and for a few years it was great and I earned some good money. But slowly, slowly the competition got cheaper and my revenue diminished to a point where it now just ticks over. I tried getting in new business but selling wasn’t my strong point so now I concentrate on property investing. It’s been 12 years or more since I started the core business so I’m already in the top 4% of business owners just by continuing to trade for 10 years+, so in some ways I’m a success, but considering how it’s fortunes have gone steadily down you could say it’s more like a failure.

But I keep going, keep trying new things, keep striving and do my best to keep positive.

What else?

At the time I started my business I also started doing abstract paintings and have since sold in excess of 650 originals, albeit at very affordable prices. Success

A few years ago I tried setting up an online business, I got nowhere. Fail

Then I decided to write a self help book, I gave myself one year to write it. I did just that. Success

I self published it and learned a lot about marketing so I could sell it, I even created a 90 day home study course to go along with it. Success

I didn’t get anywhere with it. Fail

After dabbling a bit in business networking I set up my own network group and met lots of interesting people. Success

It didn’t bring me any new business or income streams. Fail

I overcame technical hurdles (and if you know me you know that’s a big deal) to set up blogs like this one and YouTube videos. Success

I reached 2nd Dan Black belt in my chosen martial art and when the club owner retired earlier this year he handed the running of the club over to me. Success

I taught myself how to play the piano and now write my own instrumental pieces. Success

I have written a 12 part children’s book series. Success

I could go on with a long list of successes and failures but my point is, to me, success is an attitude. We don’t know which failures we’ve had in the past might turn into successes, or what lessons they have taught us that might help us with success in the future. So in order to give myself the best chance of success I have to follow the following equation: R+R+HW +D,P&C. Resourcefulness + Resilience + Hard Work + Determination, Persistence & Consistency.

Make sure this resonates with you before adopting it though as there are many sayings and formulas out there that can misleading. One is attributed to Einstein: “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.” However, if you were a door to door salesman and you quit after the first ‘No thanks’ because of Einstein’s quote you’d never get to door 7 where the first buyer of your product is. Or door 18 where your second buyer is, or door 32 where your biggest buyer is.

The lesson is only learned after sufficient energy has been put into something and you’ve learned all you can from the process and only you’ll know when that is. We also have to learn from the ‘No thanks’ in order to maximise a different result further up the metaphorical street.

Will I continue to have failures? Of course. But hopefully my ratio of successes will get larger.

So to answer the headline of this blog: The only way to properly fail is either not to try in the first place or quit trying because of failure. That’s not me and I hope it’s not you either.

So let me ask you this…

What would you regret most at the end of your life:

A) Failing to reach your dream goal

B) Never having tried to reach your dream goal

Enjoy

Stu

🙂

The 3 types of Procrastination

Which type are You?

Hiya,

One of my Ponders group does a daily blog and linked to a fascinating article on procrastinators a while back.

Apparently, people procrastinate for different reasons. Dr. Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago identifies three basic types of procrastinators:

1. Arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.
2. Avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
3. Decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events.

To read the full post and article on procrastination click here: http://bit.ly/1hPNHzk

(Thanks again Tina)

Strive to thrive

Stu

🙂

PS: If you’d like to receive my no cost daily thought provoking “Ponders, Quotes and Questions” emails simply email me at: stuart@HowToChangeYourLifeOneDayAtATime.com and I’ll add you right on.

Why failure is necessary on the road to success…

Project mood chart

Hiya,

In Chip and Dan Heath’s brilliant book “Switch“, they talk about the necessity for businesses to adopt a growth mindset and that failure is part of that mindset.

“In the business world, we implicitly reject the growth mindset. Bussiness people think in terms of two stages: You plan, and then you execute. There’s no ‘learning stage’ or ‘practice stage’ in the middle. From the business perspective, practice looks like poor execution. Results are the thing: We don’t care how ya do it, just get it done!” – They say, explaining that everything in the middle can look like a failure.

They go on to describe a ‘project mood chart‘ that plots how and why changes in emotion within a team happen at different stages in a project. Usually it starts with hope and enthusiasm, ideas are flowing freely and abundantly, but in order to integrate all of these ideas some moments of insight are required. And insight doesn’t always happen when you want it to. Depression can set in and the project starts to feel like a failure. But with persistence, improvements are made, the necessary tweaking happens and eventually the solution becomes more and more visible.

They state that by telling a team to ‘expect‘ this process it doesn’t come across as negative but rather as optimistic, as now – failure is described as just a part of the overall journey to a successful outcome.

They go on to say:

“That’s the paradox of the growth mindset. Although it seems to draw our attention to failure, and in fact encourages us to seek out failure, it is unflaggingly optimistic. We will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down – but throughout, we’ll get better, and we’ll succeed in the end.”

Falling down as you travel down the path is an opportunity to learn where the pot-holes are, they are not a signal that you are failing to walk down the path.

This doesn’t only apply to businesses, but rather to ALL aspects of life. We have to dig deep to get through the depressing down times when we’re in need of insight, but trust that if we just keep going it will reveal itself.

If you’re in business at any level read Switch asap.

Enjoy

Stu

🙂

What would YOU do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

JULY 23rd of  ‘How To Change Your Life One Day At A Time‘.

Ask yourself this today.

This is a great thought exercise as long as you let your imagination be as wild as possible. No holds barred, think BIG!

By allowing your conscious mind to explore the possiblities (and what you think are impossiblities), you allow your subconscious mind to offer up ideas too. This is important as it’s your subconscious mind that holds a lot of the information you might need to actually take action on any of your ideas.

If your spouse or significant other or maybe a trusted friend want to join in over a glass of wine, then it can become a lot of fun. Set some rules that keep all options open and possible, keep all comments positive – this should be fun, that’s the best way to make it creative.

Enjoy

Stu

🙂

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