Falling Down – A Natural Phenomenon
Ever heard of success stories of famous people, ever wondering why certain people are chosen to be successful in life while some others aren’t. Reasons are aplenty.
Pondering over the success sagas of some very successful people makes us think, what quality in them brought them their desired success.
The answer is success wasn’t brought to them; instead they traded their own tough paths to reach success.
Success stories reveal the challenges one faced while they walked a tough path, the hardships that made a person tough enough to taste success later on, the many difficulties a person came across while trying to work towards a specific goal and the many insides and outsides of a challenging dream.
Let’s first try to understand what success actually means. Success means different things to different people. Some people may see success as just a positive outcome of their efforts; some many define it as an exceptional achievement that’s way beyond a normal person’s capability, some may see success in their academics, for some others it may be a long awaited result meeting up their own set benchmarks.
Whatever be the definition of the term ‘success’, but how exactly does one achieve this success in life. What does it take to be successful?
How do we differentiate success from failure, why can’t every one of us be successful in life, these are some of the relevant and closely related things to success, but let’s explore each one of them in considerable detail.
Definition of Failure
Failure – the very term suggests a failed attempt leading to non-achievement of success.
Failure happens when a desired goal is not reached, when an expected outcome does not show in the way it was thought to be, failure simply because we failed at something. What happens after a failure is the next big thing to know.
When a child makes paper boats to sail them in rain water, he jumps with joy when they begin to float in the rain water.
Suppose they are unable to float and start sinking instead, the reaction on their faces turn horrible. They scream with anger and become inconsolable.
That’s because they have failed in their attempts to float the boat. This is what happens in real life too. We put in all our efforts and work towards a certain goal to finally make it happen.
In the worst scenario, if the attempt turns sour and we don’t get the expected outcome, we label it as our failure.
Failure brings down the self esteem and self confidence of a person. Look at a student who has passed his exams with flying colors against one who hasn’t been able to clear them.
The one who failed in his exams would certainly look dejected and down in sorrow, worrying as to why god chose him to be a failed person against so many others who scored very well in their papers.
Failure creates a low feeling for the person and it takes lot of strength and courage to come out of such a situation.
How To Treat Failure Positively
Failure is not the end of the world. In any situation, we must be able to see the reasons that led to our failure in a particular task and not blame our destiny or hold god responsible for our actions.
We must take self-responsibility for our failure. We must accept that we have failed at this step, but see the path ahead and not put a deadlock to close in on the failure. Things need to be worked upon.
It’s good to spend a while not doing anything since it definitely leaves a bad patch in one’s mind when failure strikes across.
But it’s totally unfair to spend a whole lifetime sitting with a past failure and not moving ahead. Let’s broaden our own options. Let’s give ourselves a test to try.
Let’s try and find out one person in this whole universe who has never fallen down and has always stood steady in whatever he did, sounds quite impossible.
Everyone tastes success and failures in their lives. Nobody is exceptional to it. But the rate of failures and successes certainly varies.
Where one person might see success in a particular business venture he goes into, another person may not even be able to open shop for a reasonable amount of time.
That does not mean the person has failed in it. It only means that the particular venture was not meant to be his, since he quite didn’t have the aptitude and working knowledge to make it big there.
When a student fails in his exams, he would be rebuked by his parents for his non-performance and also because his peers scored better marks in comparison with their own son.
This causes a down slide for the student as his support system is no longer in his favor. Instead, it works out positively for the student when his own parents advise him to be strong and accept a bad situation.
They can reassure him that a failed step does not mean the end of the road; rather a new plan of action needs to be worked out to get started all over again.
Its good not to sit doomed in failure, but taking a positive approach, one can think of steps to start from where he fell down. Walking the right steps and marching forward with confidence may help him achieve good results the next time.
Welcoming Success at One’s Doorstep
How do we treat failure as a stepping stone to one’s success is the next big question? When we fall down at a certain phase in our life, there is learning associated with the downfall for us to ponder upon.
Introspecting reasons for failure, learning from the failure and planning for a better way to keep the next step will help achieve success. Success doesn’t come to us; we have to work hard to reach our goals.
Let’s go back to the famous story where a heartbroken king learns from a spider combing up its web, never getting back in its attempt, though the king tries to break down the web as many number of times he could.
There was a learning he sought out of that instance and put to use the same learning in his warship and finally conquered enemy territory and achieved success.
In our day to day lives, if we had to fall in one of our attempts, we should try to use that as a learning experience. From learning through such falls, we learn to realize the importance of success in its entirety.
We surely attach more importance to success if we were to reach that level of achievement after multiple falls.
It takes a lot to rise from a bad situation, but the inner strength to sustain in hard times and work for the best leaves one with a positive courage to move ahead with more confidence and zeal.
Not everyone is gifted with special powers to achieve their dreams, failure at many places become common place and we have to really think whether we are made to settle with failures or fly with success in our wings.
Yes, that’s true. That’s a big confidence booster. We really have to push ourselves to break the glass ceiling to make it big in our own way and the key thing here is to never compare our achievements with that of anyone else’s.
We never know how big a failure was in a person’s life until he talks about it, instead of making a big deal out of our own failure stories, let’s stir up our minds in the right direction and spin success stories.
Getting inspired by positive thoughts takes one away from the doom of failures and instead creates a positive workshop of workable attitudes.
Knowing that failure is part and parcel of life and maintaining the same dignity and humility when one is faced with success / failure makes one more acceptable in any kind of situation.
Ups and downs are part of everybody’s life and any particular situation makes room for another situation, good or bad, but it definitely changes.
Leading a successful life means treating both success and failure on par with each other and rising every time when there is a fall.
We should never forget that a tide always has a rise and a fall but it always continues ahead in its journey irrespective of the rise or the fall.
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