It is a common happening that before you set off to chase a new goal or dream, that the people around you will decide to chip in and give their sense of worth and you will be surprised by how many will give negative feedback about the fact that what you were about to do has faults or this and that and will try to stop you. Now they may be right – however, they may not be either.
In 1954, Elvis was still a no-name performer, and Jimmy Denny, the manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after just one performance telling him, ‘You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.’ Elvis went on to become the second best-selling artists of all time.
The fact of the matter is that with concrete proof that you want something more than anyone else things will start to fall into place for you. There’s a difference between saying “I really want to live the rock and roll lifestyle” and “Here’re 4,000 blog posts I’ve made about rock and roll”. You want this dream to become a reality, well you first need to work on it – you need to convince yourself and be proud of it. When it comes to society – you will be judged based on the concrete evidence of the work you’ve done. This is perhaps the hardest of these keys to pull off but it is also one of the most valuable.
Proving your journey to your dream, to yourself – won’t be done through the validation of others. It will only be done by your willingness and discipline to see it through to the end – regardless of the failures.
For example: (provided by Sonia Thompson of Lifehack org)
Once James Dyson put his bagless Dyson G-Force vacuum cleaner on the market, it was an instant hit. Today, his company Dyson sells more than $2 billion in vacuums and other products.
The path to creating the hit vacuum cleaners was a long one. Dyson talks about why he didn’t give up during his 15-year pursuit of creating the perfect vacuum.
“There are countless times an inventor can give up on an idea. By the time I made my 15th prototype, my third child was born. By 2,627, my wife and I were really counting our pennies. By 3,727, my wife was giving art lessons for some extra cash. There were tough times, but each failure brought me closer to solving the problem. It wasn’t the final prototype that made the struggle worth it. The process bore the fruit. I just kept at it.”
Lesson:
Embrace failures as opportunities. Each failure brings a lesson that can get you closer to figuring out your optimal path to success.
How to make the lesson work for you:
With each failure, take the time to document what you did, what went wrong, and what you learned. Then use that information to guide your decision making to improve your next attempt.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
There you have it. So get out there and continue to explore, dream and discover!