3 Ways People Deal With Failure
What separates people who enjoy success from the
majority who end up never getting what they want is how we respond
to failure. It is what we do about failure that makes a big
difference.
There are three ways in which people respond to
failure.
Pattern 1: Give Excuses, Lay Blame & Give up
What do some people do when they don’t get what they want? They will
start giving themselves lots of excuses and blame everything and
everyone around them. They say things like, ‘it’s not fair’, ‘ I’m
just not smart enough’ ‘It’s just too difficult’, ‘ I’m too young’
or ‘I’m too old’, ‘ I just didn’t have the luck’, ‘ the depressed
economy affected me’.
Feeling helpless and frustrated, this first group
will stop taking action and give up! They will resign themselves to
their goal being out of reach and live a life of mediocrity.
Pattern 2: Keep Trying the Same thing Over and
Over Again
These are the people who have a lot more determination than the
first. When they don’t get their outcome, they will not quit. They
will get themselves to take action again. The motto of this group
is, ‘I failed because I did not try hard enough’ ‘If I keep trying,
I will eventually succeed’. So they keep taking action, putting in
more time, energy and effort. No matter how many times they fail,
they just keep trying harder and harder.
Will they eventually achieve their goals? It
depends. If they set small, incremental goals, they may, with enough
time and effort eventually succeed. However, if they set big and
exceptional goals, like becoming the top in their field, they will
never be successful by just trying again and again. They may
experience a better result, but they won’t reach the goals they
desire. Why?
Because, although they keep taking action, they do
not change their strategy. If you keep using the same approach, you
are going to keep getting the same result. I have seen so many
professionals and businessmen repeat this limiting pattern.
I know many businessmen who fail in their business only to start
again and do the same thing. They keep putting in ads that don’t
work, they hire ineffective people or they use the same business
model.
Pattern 3: Get Feedback, Change Strategy and
Take Action until you Succeed.
So what is the pattern that all successful individuals exhibit? When
they don’t achieve their goals, they don’t think of it as failure.
Instead, they perceive it as feedback. Either feedback that the
strategy they used was ineffective or that they did not take enough
action. They then use this feedback to immediately change their
strategy and take action again.
If they still don’t succeed, they will get more
feedback, change their strategy and take action again. They keep
repeating this process until they get what they want. They do
whatever it takes. So, remember, every time you don’t get what you
want, it is life giving you feedback. It is this continuous feedback
you need to help you adjust your approach until you hit your target.
Thomas Edison took almost 10,000 attempts before
inventing the light bulb. When asked how he did it, he said that he
had to first find 9,999 strategies of how not to invent the light
bulb. He then used this feedback to change his strategy until he got
what he wanted.
Successful people re-look and change their
strategy whenever they encounter 'failure'. They understand that
failure is feedback. Understand this principle and you will overcome
failure and achieve success in no time at all.
About The Author
Adam Khoo is an entrepreneur, best-selling author and a self-made
millionaire by the age of 26. Over the last 15 years, he has trained
over 245,000 professionals, executives and business owners to tap
their personal power and achieve excellence in their various fields
of endeavor. Discover his success secrets and claim your FREE
audio CD program '6 Ways To Achieve Anything You Want In Life'.
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