Overcoming Failure!

Aristotle once wrote that we never know a thing until we know it by its causes. Every failure, as well as every success, has its cause. If we understand the cause and reverse it if we can, then we overcome failure and turn it into success. We can learn from our failures and as Pro football coach Don Shula once said, “failure isn’t fatal, and success isn’t final.” What we do after the failure makes the difference.

Self-discipline is often a cause of failure as people can’t manage themselves. Looking to others as role models and following their lead can help us overcome inability to self-discipline. By viewing people who have been successful we find methods to help us move towards success. Our task then becomes to take their ideas and personalize those ideas so they fit our personality and work for us.

A related cause of failure is the issue of time control. Many lack the ability to put business first and reject nonproductive demands on their working time. Setting priorities and staying with them is a must to overcome failure. As a manager once told me “to work when you work and play when you play, but don’t mix the two.” It is important to balance the important areas of our life, so we get our priorities taken care of.

Sometimes we fail because we lack the sense of urgency to complete the task. We put off completion or look for an easier way to finish. Overcoming procrastination frees us both mentally and physically to have availability to get additional tasks completed. Completing tasks also give us a sense of accomplishment that will carry us on to the next challenge.

Lack of faith in oneself is another reason people fail. Most of us can do almost anything we want to do! The problem is deciding what we want and then going after it with all our efforts. Too often we set and dream about an outcome while others are making things happen. Instead of being spectators we need to become participants.

One final comment about overcoming failure. Everyone that has attained great victories has done so after failure, sometimes great failure. As W. Clement Stone once wrote, “Success is achieved by those that try, and keep trying.” Some of the greatest achievements in history were made after failure, often after many attempts. Abe Lincoln and Walt Disney are examples of multiple failures that became monumental successes!

Contact Chuck at: chuck.wright@sckans.edu

Finishing Well!

We spend our lives reaching for goals and trying to accomplish our personal dreams. Often we get sidetracked along the way and we settle for less than we had planned. We look for success and have to understand that as the late great speaker Earl Nightingale once stated “success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” One of the key words in the definition is progressive! We can’t get it all done at once. No matter what happens along the way the key is finishing well.

It almost goes without saying that to finish well one of the keys is getting off to a good start. Starting slow or poorly means we have to make up the ground we’ve lost and play catch up with others or other organizations that did get going well. We need to decide what we really want to do and then plan the steps necessary to get what sports calls “momentum.” There are times when there are “great comebacks” but most of the time starting well precedes finishing well!

Next, as Stephen Covey wrote, we not only “Begin with the end in mind’’ but keep the end in mind! Distractions and roadblocks will come along as we progress toward the goal so we must make adjustments that will get us on track during the journey. Seldom, if ever does a plan work exactly the way we envisioned it to work so we need to be flexible and adjust our plan to keep it moving. Often in sports two halves of a game look completely different because one team makes the adjustments to finish well and win the game.

Another important aspect of finishing well is staying the course. Losing focus and ultimately being distracted loses time and makes our chosen end more difficult. Even when there are times we can only make small amounts of progress it is important to stay on course. Procrastination can cause our getting off course for a while and can sabotage the whole plan. The Nike motto “Just do it.” is important and can help in staying the course.

When we finish well and achieve the goal we will have the opportunity to “enjoy the fruits.” The first fruit is that of accomplishment, the satisfaction of success. Other fruits depend upon the goal but could be income, more family time, a better retirement, a nicer home, an almost limitless list of possibilities that come from “finishing well.”