What happens when you fail? Is this a negative indicator on your chances for leading a life of success?

To be honest, if one didn’t fail at some point, then one could not be categorized as human. Look at the story of Adam and Eve. The ‘parents of all humanity’, as they are categorized in some religions and cultures, were part of what was probable the most epic of all failures!

I will admit it. I myself failed once. Tragic, I know. To be honest, I have failed in the traditional sense of the word ALOT. A large majority of my ideas and ventures do not make it past the “napkin” stage. Truthfully, that’s probably a good thing. If all of my ideas bore fruit, then I would never have time to work on new concepts and plans. Limited Failure, to a degree, helps weed out all of the negative aspects of a business or individual’s personality.

Traditional Failure

We are taught to “Learn from our Mistakes”. Is this truly the right policy? Society tells us that it is ok to fail all the time, because we are learning. I believe that we should cut our failures to a minimum. Honestly- are you a failure just because you didn’t take an idea written on a napkin to fruition? I don’t really think so. In our minds, we cannot let ourselves think that we constantly fail. This will not only take away our “success-minded” outlook on life, but drain away the ‘mojo’ that is within every one of us. No, not that mojo. I am talking about that spark that is within all of us, that bright light begging to get out.

Many of us have allowed that light to flicker and fade. By focusing upon any perceived failures, we further dim that light of potential. By changing our outlook, however, we are able to get away from worrying about any small failures, and focus the positive things going on in our lives. Keep an eye on the people around you that depend on you. Be it financial dependence (family, employees) or emotional (spouse, children)- these individuals count on you to succeed. Keeping your chin up, regardless what may be going on around you, will give them the assurance that everything will be alright.

Degrees of Failure

In order to develop and grow a mindset of success, we need to learn to establish the parameters of failure. Look within yourself, and examine past accomplishments. You will remember big things- getting your driver’s license, graduating, starting your first business, closing your first million-dollar deal… There are plenty of these, but you can usually name them off fairly quickly. What about the small accomplishments? Do you include such mundane things as putting your socks on the right way, or not spilling your morning coffee? These things are accomplishments in and of themselves, but still pale in comparison to the things you’ve done that truly matter. You would lose weeks trying to chronicle every minor accomplishment from the last year, let alone the past five or ten.

If cataloguing every degree of success in our lives seems redundant, then why do we so often dwell on the small failures that happen in our lives? We don’t notice it, but a chain reaction occurs every day around us. You wake up a few minutes later than normal, and begin to feel rushed. You spill coffee on your pants on the way to work, get into a grouchy mood, and stumble through a presentation with a VIP client because you’re busy trying to cover up the stain with the presentation folder. You lost an account that would have doubled sales because of something as simple as getting into a hurry. Instead of dwelling on the fact that you’re running late, you should have prioritized preparing for the presentation. We forget about the good ‘little’ things happening around us, but let tiny bad things escalate in very ‘big’ bad things.

Prioritize your Problems

There are hundreds of Time Management programs developed to teach you how to stay organized and get things done. The basic concepts of most of these programs are the same: Prioritize, Compartmentalize, and Delegate. The same concepts taught by those programs also apply to our internal ‘Stress Management Center’. Being able to reign in your subconscious and manage your emotions will allow you the freedom of no longer being controlled by them.

From now on, make an effort to prioritize things in your mind. Small failures are to be treated as such- they are inconsequential and only make things worse if you dwell on them. As soon as you or someone around you starts dwelling on something that really doesn’t matter, change the topic to something more important. This will cause the subconscious to shift gears, allowing you the freedom of forgetting about your small problems. When it comes to bigger ‘oops’ moments and problems, always take the time to ask yourself “Will stressing about this issue make it any better”. If your ‘self’ answers “No”, then move on to more pressing problems. Yes- regardless how well things are going, there are always going to be more pressing problems than what you are busy worrying about.

Compartmentalization may be a big word, but it’s a simple concept. Have you ever had to smile while an emotional storm was brewing inside? Our minds are incredibly built, allowing us to feel and exhibit multiple emotions at any given moment. The mind also provides us with the key that lets us control those same emotions, and choose which ones are allowed to rise to the surface of our conscious thought. Once we reign in our emotions and feelings with Prioritization, we can then begin to sift through them and decide which ones we will allow to affect us. The concept of Compartmentalization lets us move stressors, failures, and other inconsequential issues aside, providing our minds with more ‘processing power’ to deal with situations that we can change for the better.

In an office atmosphere, a manager can lessen their work load by delegating tasks to subordinates and employees. As it applies to our emotions and feelings, we don’t really have that luxury. We can, however, utilize the concept of Delegation to help us lessen the stress load and deal with failures and trials. Once you have Prioritized key issues, and Compartmentalized to get the less important ones out of the way, it comes time to Delegate your own thought process to handle issues in order of importance. You must tell yourself that critical issues have to be handled first. If you hit a stopping point while you’re handling a critical issue, set it aside and move on to the next. Delegation doesn’t mean forgetting about your problems- simply setting them on the backburner. Compartmentalization allows you to set it aside, Prioritization shows you the next issue on your internal Task manager, and Delegation brings it to the forefront, letting you focus all of your resources on solving that particular dilemma.

Summary

While these concepts may be a bit confusing, they are integral in managing stress and dealing with any failure that may arise in your life. To have any kind of success amidst failure or stress, we must learn how to program ourselves for a mindset of success. Using the concepts of Prioritization, Compartmentalization, and Delegation will unlock within you the capability of developing this mindset. Look at any successful individual – the problems that they deal with are SO much bigger than anything we have to face, yet they continue being successful. The ones that crack under pressure were never taught the secrets of having Success through Failure. If you can succeed in the worst possible situations, there is nothing that will be able to take your success away. Look within, and build a foundation that will carry you for decades to come.

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