Failure is a Springboard to Success

Last week was very exciting as I travelled to Germany to deliver my Mental Resilience session to the members of the Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics (BME) in Dortmund. What a wonderful group they were!

Marcel Deveraux was my contact for this booking and the feedback from this was very positive. Some of the members met in the bar afterwards and I enjoyed a glass of beer with them. English was not their first language, but they agreed that the way I delivered the session meant they could follow it really well.

A trip to Ireland

This week I travel to Dublin to deliver a Masterclass for a large Builders Merchant called HPC Group. My contact is managing director Dennis O’Connor who I met a few months ago after he saw me speak at an industry event and we have been working together since then.

I am excited to be working with his senior management team on Tuesday where I will be able to go through various Mental Resilience techniques to help them handle stress more effectively and to improve their performance under pressure.

This week I came across this article in Word for Today which makes a great point of how failure is inevitable but can drive us to success.

Failure is a Springboard to Success

“As you drive towards your destiny, you’re sure to hit potholes along the way, or take some wrong turns, or forget to check your fuel gauge and run out of fuel. The truth is, the only way to avoid failure is not to leave your driveway!

In the words of author William Saroyan: ‘Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure.’ The real issue in life isn’t whether or not you’re going to fail, but whether you’re going to learn from your experience and turn it into the wisdom needed to succeed.

They see failure as a learning experience

In a survey of successful people, not one of them viewed their mistakes as failures. They considered them ‘learning experiences’, or ‘tuition paid’, or ‘opportunities for growth’. That’s the winning attitude! Henry Ward Beecher said: ‘It’s defeat that turns bone to flint…gristle into muscle…and makes men invincible. Do not then be afraid of defeat.

You are never so near victory as when you’re defeated in a good cause.’ So the next time you fail at something, stop and ask yourself, ‘What have I learned? Am I grateful for this experience? How can I turn it into success? Where do I go from here?

Who else has failed like this, and how can they help me? How can my experience help others? Did I actually fail, or just fall short of an unrealistically high goal? Where did I succeed as well as fail?’

Wise words indeed

These are wise words which resonate with me. I have faced failure after failure as I have gone through my life and in particular over the past few years building my business. If I gave up after every shattering defeat or failure – I wouldn’t be doing what I love doing now.

If I am honest, I thought about giving up lots of times in the past – but I didn’t. I looked at what I learned from each failure and then I took positive action to move forward. Soon my attitude would change, and I would be back fighting and winning.

Your feelings are directly connected to your thoughts

Life is not easy and when you hit the bumps in the road you need to get back up dust yourself down and take positive action to get you going again. You may want to spend a little time listing all the things you are grateful for to change your mindset.

The conscious mind can only think of one thing at a time, so while you are thinking about the things you are grateful for you can’t be thinking about the negative things in your life. Your feelings are connected to your thoughts. If your thinking is positive you feel good, if your thinking is negative you feel bad.

If you want to check what you are thinking just check how you are feeling. If you are feeling bad simply change what you are thinking about to something positive and you will soon be feeling good again.

Thoughts for the week:

1. How do you view failure?
2. Successful people view failure as a learning experience.
3. This week check your feelings regularly – if you are feeling bad check your thinking and change your thoughts to positive ones and watch your feelings change.
4. Failure in life is inevitable so embrace it and learn from it.

Well that’s it for this week have a wonderful weekend and stay positive.

Warm regards

John

Off the Wall – How to Develop World Class Mental Resilience available HERE
http://www.jdmindcoach.co.uk/product/off-the-wall-how-to-develop-world-class-mental-resilience/ (Special offer. Put in code 10POUND when prompted to receive a signed copy for £10 including postage and packing – UK only)