[vc_row padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px”][vc_column fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/1″ id=”” class=”post-content” style=””][text_output]Listen! Nobody wants to look stupid or be the laughing stock. We all prefer to be laughing than to be laughed at. No wonder we are afraid of failing, we have seen what happens to people who do. If it were up to us, we would give up whenever we have tried something and there is even the slightest hint of failure. This has become the norm for our daily lives, avoid shame and ridicule, give up when you think you might fail and look stupid.
We do that in school too, we avoid the “hard” subjects and embrace the easy ones. Even if this subject area isn’t something we actually like, we do it anyway because we can and it makes us look good. However, even the easy subjects often start out difficult. For them to become easy, we had to push past a period when we looked silly. The first step to being good at anything usually involves some level of looking silly.
The path to becoming an expert usually involves some level of perseverance and ignoring how I look. It includes being determined, falling, getting up again and ignoring ridicule and self-condemnation. People who just focus on a goal and ignore everything else are the most successful.
Before he became famous, the founder of Hyundai, Ju-Yung Chung was sleeping in a cabin. However, the bed he set in was infested with bed bugs so sleeping was tortuous. No matter how he shook off the sheets, it didn’t work, the bed bugs returned while he was sleeping. His brilliant solution was to put each leg of the bed in a small pot of water so they couldn’t crawl up to him. It worked beautifully; for two days.
During the third night, he felt the bed bugs biting again. How did they cross the water? They didn’t, the bed bugs crawled up the sides of the walls, over the bed where he lay and fell on him. He was amazed, but he learnt one important lesson, there is always a way. The success of Hyundai is a testament to that resolve. Thomas Edison also failed 10,000 times while refining the light bulb. Can you imagine, TEN THOUSAND TIMES! Yet he called it a 10,000-step process with no failures.
The fear of failure limits our ability to succeed because there is no success without failure. Usually, when something doesn’t appear to work out, we just give up. Remember, we don’t want to be ridiculed. bed bugs and mosquitoes aren’t like that, they ALWAYS find a way. If we can adopt their determination, we will also find that way. Living afraid of failure limits us to a boring predictable existence.
The next time you feel like giving up on something that seems too difficult, just think of bed bugs or mosquitoes and think how relentless they are at getting what they need. What if YOU were that determined, what if YOU believed there is always a way? What could you have achieved?[/text_output][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px”][vc_column fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/1″][vc_raw_html]JTNDc3R5bGUlM0UlMEEuZW50cnktdGh1bWIlMjBpbWclMjAlN0IlMEElMjAlMjAlMjAlMjBtYXgtaGVpZ2h0JTNBJTIwNDAwcHglM0IlMEElN0QlMEElMEEucG9zdC1jb250ZW50JTIwJTdCJTBBJTIwJTIwJTIwJTIwdGV4dC1hbGlnbiUzQSUyMGp1c3RpZnklM0IlMEElMjAlMjAlMjAlMjB0ZXh0LWp1c3RpZnklM0ElMjBpbnRlci13b3JkJTNCJTBBJTdEJTBBJTNDJTJGc3R5bGUlM0U=[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column][/vc_row]
