You will either SUCCEED or LEARN

You will either SUCCEED or LEARN

Read this statement once again, very slowly this time. Pause for a second. Are you really getting it ?!

You will either Succeed or you will Learn . It is as SIMPLE as that !

Going Back 

Now go back to all those memories when you wanted to take up some new opportunity and you didn’t, because you feared that you will not succeed. Or the time when you took the opportunity, but put so much pressure on yourself wanting to succeed creating immense stress or the time when you didn’t succeed and felt like a loser, demotivated and full of self doubt .

What exactly is happening here ? 

New Opportunities – Creating Awareness

Whenever you get a chance to explore a new opportunity , usually you will have one main thought . Will I be able to succeed or not ? What does this thought make you feel ? FEARFUL ? And you will continue to act from that feeling of fear . Deep inside you DO want to succeed, but you have these self doubts and fear and even though you do your best - maybe you will succeed or you won’t. But what happens after that ? What’s that feeling you have if you don’t succeed ? Demotivated, Frustrated ? You feel that you gave it your best, but still didn’t succeed ? Self esteem goes down the drain ? That feeling of “what will other think creeps in “? Ooooooooh.

Am I Right or Am I Right ?

So when you step out of this scene, what’s REALLY happening here ?

You are setting high standards for your self with NO room to learn .You are looking at it from a “ end point “of view. You have the destination in your mind that you should succeed , but no thoughts on how it’s a continuous journey of learning .

You are being very harsh on your self .You are moving forward with great pressure and weight to succeed.

You are moving forward with  negative thoughts that makes you stressed. 

STOP !!!  Nothing about this is POSITIVE  !!!

You are approaching this from a totally wrong perspective and creating so much added stress which in turn impacts all the people around you in your personal and professional life.

OK ,You might succeed and move on, but are you ready to deconstruct that and learn and see what went well and what could have done better ? Puhleez ! Who has the time for all that ? right ??

But when you don’t succeed , wow … all you have time for is; self critiquing , feeling of defeat, self doubt , beating yourself up to the point you will be at your lowest and that spills over to all your actions and emotions and you might even carry it forward .

Benchmark 

What I really want to do now is take a loud speaker and shout “ Failure ” according to WHO ?? Who is setting this bench mark ? Who has gone though this same situation, with the same personality, EQ, IQ, AQ, CQ, skills, strengths, weakness, attitude, experience as you ?? Who ? Can you name one ?? We are all different. There are no two people on this earth who is simliar in all those things I mentioned ? Agree ?? So who are you setting this benchmark to ? Why is there even a word called “Failure “in the dictionary ?? 

The Word " Failure "

Try to say the word “FAIL”out loud. What comes to your mind ? What are your thoughts ? What do you feel ? It comes with so much weight and negative connotation .If you approach a goal with this on your mind , you are giving space in your mind for that thought and you are losing precious space for learning more and working towards succeeding .

Life is a journey

This life is a journey, not a destination.Agree ? And it is all these opportunities, experiences and learning which takes you forward. When you say I might succeed or fail, you are putting an abrupt stop to that process, even in your mind. But just imagine, if you can change it into a thought,“

I will either succeed or I will learn ". It’s a continuous process, something you can look forward to and take that new learning about your self , about your experience and  take it forward to new opportunities .

This is exactly the how I operate . Life is simple . 

Live it, Don’t Complicate it.

Knowing that whatever you undertake , you will either succeed or you will learn is very positive and stress free. It doesn’t mean that you wont give your best , if you are passionate about the opportunities or any endeavour you want to undertake , you work hard and give your best , and then when you don’t succeed , you learn from it and move on . That way life is very beautiful . And be bold to own your experience and move forward .You are getting more powerful by adding on a wealth of experiences with each opportunity .

Awareness

I think for me, the awareness came because I come from a background where people expected me to deliver 100% and excel all the time and there was no room for the "failure”.  After years of going through that , observing the impact and learning from that, I came to the realisation that people are approaching it very wrongly . Especially during my coaching sessions, I meet clients with low self esteem, self doubt and fear of taking an opportunity –all based on their fear of failure.

You will either succeed or you will learn . Try to read it aloud and be aware of what you feel ! Light ? Excited ? Something to look forward to ?

Ripple Effect

So I was very happy when my mentee told me during a discussion how these words impacted her and motivated her to jump at a good opportunity which she would have not considered otherwise. She’s a brilliant young lady from Myanmar who’s full of potential and we have been working on improving her self confidence. She is now taking it one step further by encouraging her peers and group members to do the same !

I was very moved and humbled . And this phrase seems to make sense to my peers too . So that when I decided to to write an article and see what others feel about it .

The Quote

I tried to think back on where I got this quote from. It could be from John Jacobs who said ," You either succeed or you learn , take failure off the table " or it could be from Kevin Kruse who said ," There is no such thing as failure , You either succeed or learn " or Robert Kiyosaki or it could be from the quote by Nelson Mandela who said ," I never lose .I either win or I learn ". I'm so thankful to all of them for inspiring me with this simple philosophy .

How to apply it in life

Whenever you don’t succeed, see what went wrong. Was it because of unavoidable circumstances or was it because you didn’t plan, prepare and practice well enough. Learn how to learn when you don’t succeed. And take that learning and move on to the next .

When you take the “failure “out of the equation, then you are also removing one big thought. FEAR.

If you agree with my thoughts , then next time when someone mentions the "F "word, be bold and ask them ,"According to Who"?

Let’s take the focus out of the "F "word …totally .