Hola!
I'm Blanca.
You are meant to have an optimal life, one that's happy, successful, abundant and of great contribution. My mission is to help you achieve that.
Yesterday I was one of the speakers at the “Job Fair for Internationals”. Among my audience I saw a dear friend. After my talk, we had a short chat. He’s a talented Indian engineer who would like to stay in the Netherlands for work. The company that employed him is in the process of being sold, so they stopped his immigration process. Now he has three months to arrange his stay here. Finding a job in 3 months is almost impossible. Setting up a company in 3 months is almost impossible. Well that word “impossible” is not stopping him. He’s doing whatever it takes to reach his objective. He told me: If I fail, I rather fail successfully.
He has now decided to join the ranks of Arianna Hufftington (rejected by 36 publishers), Steve Jobs (rejected by his own company) and Michael Jordan (didn’t make it to his high school team). He’s decided to make out of this experience a great learning opportunity. He decided that this failure is the path towards success. It will be so. With this attitude there is no other option for him. His success is inevitable.
“Fail Successfully” is now his motto. I find it so very inspiring, that today I’m writing about this. Today I’ll talk about how you can transform a set back into an accelerator towards mastery.
Don’t hang on to negative emotions
He admitted he was angry and disappointed after they terminated him. He remembered that true emotions are real just for the first hour, afterwards they are reinforced by ourselves. So he decided to set up and out of those negative feelings. He made himself the most delicious food he could. This food comforted not only his body, but also his soul and his mind. He regained strengths. He started to see solutions. Copy him!
Feel that anger, fear, and self-pity. Feel deeply those negative feelings. Decide to let them go. Give yourself the most effective kind of self-love you can: food, a walk in the park, sauna or whatever works for you. This activity should leave you with the feeling of being hugged, being safe and most importantly being powerful. Once you are there, ask yourself: what can I do? Immediately take action.
Get the Stoics to Help You
When all seems lost, the Stoics can rescue you and provided the fuel to move forward. Their idea of “contemplating the death” is a powerful tool to fail successfully. Write the worst case scenario for these two scenarios:
- the one where you take action towards your dreams. This is the one that will lead you to fail successfully. When you develop everything that can go wrong, you’ll see that you can cope with that.
- the one you don’t take action. This scenario is the one of regret. When you see all that can go wrong in this one, you’ll discover death.
After inhabiting these two different worlds, taking risk will be equal to being alive. No matter what could go wrong, being alive always wins.
Try Again, Try Again, Try Again
The teacher turned his back to the class to write something on the blackboard. A paper bomb hit the blackboard, clearly missing the intended target, the teacher. He turned around and with a power that is difficult to explain got the culprit to admit his guilt. The teacher told the class that his task was to teach them to dare to be the best at anything they’ll attempt. To clarify this intention, he admonished a peculiar punishment to the paper bomber. The child stayed all the school break throwing paper bombs to an X on the blackboard. He wanted to be a paper bomber, he needed to try again and again.
This made such an impression in all the students that they became first class in all they did. From that school came out presidents, opera singers, and captains of industry. They tried again and again and again and again. There was no limit to their persistence.
Wonder
Play with this idea:
“I cannot wait to see what good would come out of this”
Wear this question like if it wear glasses. Imaging you were collecting clues towards your “treasure chest”, aka your success. Go to the next meeting wondering where the good would show up. Would it be in the next interruption? Would it be in the next conversation? Be constantly present to find the good in your life.
Be Consciously Positive
Positive thinking is important as it can keep your fears and anxieties in check; but it is just as important to acknowledge them. To tame your obstacles, you first need to name and acknowledge them. Once you do so, you will see that your inner power will grow dramatically – then you’ll be consciously positive.
Juxtaposing your goals with the obstacles that might hinder your accomplishment increases the likelihood of goal attainment, this is especially true when we talk about internal obstacles. When we are able to vocalize our fears, we can conquer them. When we avoid and deny them, they can take hold and hijack our dreams.
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Do you want to do something magnificent with your one and precious life?
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Have you conquered a failure in the past? How did you do it?
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Great post Blanca! I love that expression fail successfully and seeing it as an experience, that is so inspiring and reading this we both now your Indian friend will succeed. Maybe in his original plan to get a job here or in another something that comes out of his successful failure journey. I am going to keep that in mind. And my Jordan experience is also a (very) successful failure. Because although it worked out different than I expected and hoped for and the years after were hard I never ever regretted. And still where I am now is a result of starting that journey and taking the step towards my dreams. And I love that part of self-pampering when life sucks at certain moments I had never looked at that way before. I would usually beat myself up, about it. But I remember reading about somewhere else earlier, where someone’s after the pampering after a huge disappointment was “buying herself flowers”. I now start to see the value of that, it puts you in another mood and that mood helps you to think in possibilities (and see them and act on them) rather than staying in the anger (what is not the same is polishing away the negative). So thanks!!!
It’s always great to see you here, Harma. I’m delighted to read that this resonate with you and your Jordan experience. I totally agree with you, this was a very successful failure. This brought you were you are now. It’s so inspiring to see how your business is taking shape, how it’s being born. Many blessings! and Congratulations!