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You have a hope, a dream, a vision.
The context is your personal, professional or political life; or some combination thereof. When you think about this thing- this project, idea, career, business, etc.- you become excited, inspired and motivated. It makes you feel alive!
Yet as of today, it's unrealized.
Does this mean you’ve ‘failed’ to reach your goal? That you’re a ‘loser’? That you’ll never get ‘there’?
NO.
If you’ve ever failed to succeed at something important to you, (and I assure you, you have) it may have nothing to do with your skill set, talents, gifts or purpose. It may not even have anything to do with your job, the company you work for or the manager to whom you report. Nor is it necessarily a timing issue, a matter of luck or a function of the people you know (or don’t know).
It may merely be a matter of YET. Let me explain….
Failure has two distinct faces.
You have an outcome other than the one you wanted or expected
You have yet to achieve your goal
Neither is bad or even good, per se, but it's important that you distinguish between the two.
The second option is what you can’t yet see, and it's those intangibles in life that hijack success. We think that because we can’t see some concrete result, some evidence of our success, that not only has it not happened, but that it will never happen.
We mistakenly collapse the lack of evidence of success, with the feeling of failure.
They are distinct, and they need to be kept that way if you’re ever going to actualize your hope, dream or vision. if you confuse lack of success with evidence of failure, you’re going to stop trying; you’re going to give up before you get to the finish line. Then you'll have your evidence of failure.
What do you do when you want to toss in the towel? Remember that your lack of success may simply mean that you just haven’t gotten ‘there’ YET.
When have you mistaken lack of success as evidence of failure? What did you do? What was the outcome?
You know where to write your comments. You know who needs you to share this with them. Please do both because we want to learn from you!