I don't claim to know much about success, but I've learned a lot about failure.
Growing and transitioning from a boy to a man, along all of my ventures and in course of my life over the years, I have had my moments with failure.
Image is mine
I've failed repeatedly, and at this point in my life, I don’t shy away from failing at things because I understand the futility of my meticulous efforts and how this failures has lead to the man I have become overtime.
In the course of failing repeatedly, I've experienced deep misery, self-doubt, hopelessness—these are the companions of failure and as I fail - I began to succeed too as I learnt ways of not doing things.
Let me share something I know about failure -
• You'll fail if you take to heart the criticism from those who can't see your vision. The naysayers, the doubters, the ones who can't see beyond their own limitations—they'll project their fears and insecurities onto you. If you let their words affect you, you'll willingly subscribe to failure.
• You'll fail if you constantly seek validation from others. If your friends don't believe in you, if they laugh at your efforts, if they remind you of past failures, you'll fail. Cut ties with such relationships immediately. One of the things that breaks our mental strength is staying close to people who pluck our feathers to clean their ears!
• Until I personalized my failure and stopped listening to naysayers and stopped feeling like I was worse of, I couldn’t thrive with anything. T
Some while back, I cut everyone off - most friendships was purely vibes and trips. I disconnected everyone from my 'friendship' grid then started a new mental conditioning with myself.
I stopped sharing important things with friends and acquaintances. I recall how I suffer "near and almost -syndrome," always discussing almost-successes instead of actual results. When I stopped sharing my goals especially on Socialmedia, I started to feel and achieve some of them.
I embraced spirituality over religion. God became something I yearn to discover for myself. I was an agnostic until that mental shift. I found better mental strength in constant solitude and meditation, prayers, and inner reflection.
I stopped complaining and focused on solutions. Complaints are weak energy that stifles productivity. I always asked myself, "How do I solve this problem?"
If nothing gets better, how do I stay relevant so that I don’t beg people for money here without exchanging value at the end of every engagement.
I stopped blaming others.
I stopped blaming people and took full responsibility for my present failures and this helped me learn from them. Great changes come from the time we see the outcome of our lives as our sole responsibility.
This is my growth pattern.
There are lessons that only failure can teach you. There's information you can only gain through loss. Lean into the lessons this week.
I learnt this the hard way ...the sooner you fail the first time , the better because it will take a few failures to reach success
This is why I tell people, fix your relationship with failure. Your success entirely depends on it.
So, that's it for the LOH contest #200 with the prompt,
How do you handle failure, and what do you learn from it?
Thanks for stopping by
SOKA🖤