One of the greatest ways to fail is to stop moving. As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
If you want something… if you’ve set a goal, then go after it. If you don’t… or if you stop trying, then you will NEVER achieve it.
Fear of Failure
Unfortunately, somewhere in our society, we have told ourselves that failure is a bad thing and we must take every precaution necessary to avoid it.
However, history proves otherwise. As Ekaterina Walter puts it:
No great success was ever achieved without failure. It may be one epic failure. Or a series of failures – such as Edison’s 10,000 attempts to create a light bulb or Dyson’s 5,126 attempts to invent a bagless vacuum cleaner. But, whether we like it or not, failure is a necessary stepping stone to achieving our dreams.
In other words, embrace failure as a necessary process in achieving your goals. Learn from your mistakes, pivot, and try something else. Repeat the process until you achieve the success you desire.
Define Success
One important footnote to this entire conversation: you need to determine what success looks like before you start.
What needs to happen before you can call yourself a success? Number of clients? Amount of money earned?
However you choose to define success, write it down. Tape it to your desk. Look at it every day, then create and execute a to-do list that helps you get closer to success.