It’s Not Failure You Are More Afraid Of, It’s Actually Success
by John Elliott aka Oaky Wood
I sat listening to a recording made at a success seminar recently. You know the sort of downloadable giveaway thrown at you for signing, in this box or that, and as usual, it was gathering dust on my hard drive, destined to get lost amongst everything else I had downloaded from the latest Joint Venture campaigns by the Internet Marketing fraternity. Whilst sorting the chaff from the good stuff, this one grabbed my attention, so I poured a cup of coffee, and got myself comfortable.
The speaker then said something I thought was really interesting.
He said, "It's not failure we're afraid of, it's actually success."
It was one of those rare "Oh! Right" moments for me, you know the one where the penny drops, and the old light bulb in my head splutters and flickers into life, as the realisation of what he had said was quite profound, yet so very true, I began to understand why so many of my friends and acquaintances, simply failed to grasp the fuller implications, of what they could actually achieve for themselves, simply by having a desire to be successful.
Now I have always been curious about why some people do
succeed and yet others don't really get off the starting block and are simply destined to be failures.
David Vallieres wrote a special report on 'success vs failure' it was called 'Fail Faster for Success'. In that report he suggested that failing faster in low-risk situations was the way to help you
succeed faster, because, if you can eliminate what does not or is not working for you, then you can more quickly discover what does work and move forward towards being successful.
If you haven't read or had the pleasure of downloading that free report or simply lost your copy, you can get it here:
http://www.ezinejet.com/failfast/1stsecret/FailFast.pdf
What this speaker said made a lot of sense to me.
Certainly all the tools, the resources, the information and everything you may ever need to succeed is readily available and often free, even within those forums. So why do people still choose to walk down the path to 'failure' rather than the one that can lead them to their ultimate success? How they cling to failing projects and business models, in the vain hope of some future divine miracle or resurrection, when all around others leave the sinking ship.
The real reason is that they are more comfortable as a 'failure', or so egotistical which they simply like the position they are in.
Strange as that sounds when you hear it, it's so profoundly true.
In order to really succeed at anything you have to move from being just 'comfortable' to 'risk taking' positions in your life.
You have to start doing things you're not used to, things that are a little 'scary and risky' at first, as its those risks that separate the ones who will succeed and those destined to fail. Like making more money and taking on more responsibility. Its so easy for the 9 to fiver’s to simply plod along in their mundane job, as long as those pay-checks come in on time each month, then you are not going to rock the boat by trying to get ahead, as this involves taking those risks, and moving forward scares you half to death, out of shear fear of losing what you already have, the ‘comfortable’ and the familiar, and change is really scary. So lets stay as we are type of attitudes.
If you don't think you're afraid of making more money, you're
kidding yourself. With more money comes more responsibility, and more responsibility is quite scary for most people. Right?
Don't be afraid of the responsibility that comes with success,
come to terms with it, face it head-on and embrace it instead.
But success is nothing more than a positive habit that ANYONE can develop. If you can develop successful positive habits, your actual success is just about guaranteed! No matter what you try to be successful at, whether it’s a hobby or a business, or simply being more successful in your own relationships with others. Not taking these responsibilities seriously is one reason many partnerships fail too. By surrounding yourself with other successful go-getters and not the whinges and whiners who seem to spend most of their time pulling others to pieces rather than being successful themselves. Success breeds success, apathy only breeds more apathetic people sitting on the fence.
For example: What do you do each day to reach your goals?
Do you even have any goals at all to reach for?
If you don’t have goals, dreams or aspirations, then how are you going to achieve anything. Having something to aim for in life or business is the first step to being successful. Simply put if you never plan to paint that kitchen, then that kitchen just won’t ever get painted. If you don’t plan to get promotion, you’ll never get noticed, and you’ll stay in your safe position of ‘comfortable’, If you don’t aim for the stars how are you ever going to get off the ground in the first place.
Ok it’s time to now write down what you would like to accomplish each day, week or month. Since we're talking about making more money, how much, at a minimum would you like to earn extra each month? Now be realistic here, don’t set this goal too high
Once you have that figure work backwards and determine HOW
you're going to get to that figure. In other words, what do you have to do TODAY to make your goal for that month?
If you said you wanted to make say an extra $1,000 per month, fine. That's $33.33 a day right. Not out-of-reach for anyone. It's
very possible to do, and not all that hard, provided that you have focused your energy and efforts in achieving just that one goal, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to actually achieve, its simply a matter of having a target to aim at.
I can hear you all saying, "Yeah right. Maybe for you it's easy,
but I could never make that much."
If you just said that to yourself, then you are guilty of being afraid of success. The apathy syndrome has once again just kicked in, and already the loser within has won again.
Stop yourself and realize that it's only success and it's partners "responsibility" and “change” that you're really afraid of. Once you know your enemies then you can overcome them with ease. Those inner Gremlins of fear can only win if you let them
So, what can you do to reach that goal, starting today? At least have a goal and aim for it
Get more listings up on ebay perhaps?... Start building your opt-in list even, send out JV proposals, or build more websites?...
What do you have TO DO?
Success is a positive habit. Start doing what you need to do today
and every day and pretty soon it becomes a POSITIVE HABIT. You will
get better and more efficient at what you do and more successful as you develop better work habits. Success is a great motivator no matter how small those successes are. As every success acts as a building block, a catalyst, so that once your goal is reached, you set another higher goal and now channel your energies and efforts towards that new goal, thus building on your previous success, one step at a time, climbing that ladder slowly to the top. Many fail completely by setting unattainable goals, or goals beyond their reach at that precise moment in time. By setting smaller more achievable goals you grow forward with more confidence. No one tries to climb a ladder by making the first step half way up do they, no, one rung at a time, and soon your ultimate goal will be reached with ease.
You'll always make some mistakes and have many small failures along the way, but that will help you learn what NOT to do, so you can focus on what you should do (re-read David’s "Fail Faster For Success" report.) Keep a TO DO list in front of you to help keep you focused and on track. Failing is not BEING A FAILURE, it’s a stepping stone and learning curve to your success, so savour and relish the knowledge gained, and quickly move on and set new goals.
You see? Success is not really that hard for anyone to achieve. But you have to be un-afraid to succeed. It is scary to move away from those comfortable things you used to do, like watch TV, or surf the net, or being a forum addict all day, or simply playing out the role of being a business executive, a bit like being part of the Simms computer game where its all an illusion, all without a positive goal or purpose, without that vision or dream to work towards. But the results in the end are well worth it. Don't ever be afraid to take risks, don’t be afraid to try, don’t be afraid of success, embrace it with humility and succeed against all odds anyway AS I DID.
To Your Continued Success
John Elliott aka Oaky Wood
John Elliott aka Oaky Wood is the co-founder of The Corner 4 Women http://thecorner4women.com that is sponsored by http://DipetaneSoutheast.com
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