Have you ever held back on doing something because you were afraid of failure?  Most people have!  Let’s face it; no one likes to fail.  None of us likes to feel like we’re ineffective, weak, or lacking in any way, and that’s exactly how failure makes us feel.

However, you may be surprised to know that failure doesn’t exist – until YOU say it does.  In the dictionary, failure has several definitions:

1. A failing to do or perform
2. A state of inability to perform a normal function adequately
3. A fracturing or giving way under stress
4. A lack of success

Look carefully at those definitions and you’ll probably realize they have one thing in common when it comes to goal achievement:

Failure is only a type of perception

If you believe you have failed, then you have.  If you believe you don’t have the ability to succeed, then you don’t.  If you believe you can’t handle the pressure of achieving your goals, you can’t.  If you believe you’re not successful, you aren’t.  Failure only exists in your own mind!  The moment you decide to give up or stop working toward your goals, failure is born.

But what if you never do that?  What if you continue working toward your goals, one step at a time for as long as it takes?  There’s no failure then, is there?

This insight should be very encouraging if you’ve been working toward goals and have not yet seen positive results.  If you keep going and continue making whatever adjustment are needed, how can you fail?

3 tips to help you stay focused on your goals

1) Never give yourself an out. Most people give themselves an out without even realizing it. It’s called a fade out!  They are willing to work hard on achieving their goals, but only until the going gets too rough or their motivation dwindles.  Don’t do that!  Commit to making your goals happen, no matter what!  Never quit, never contemplate admitting failure, and never lose your inner determination.

2) Don’t get hooked on a specific timeframe for completion. It’s a good idea to set a general timeline, but be aware that some circumstances will be beyond your control. You can never say for sure exactly when your goal will be achieved.  If you lock yourself into a very restrictive timeline, you might be setting yourself up to feel like a failure!  Instead, get a general idea of when you’d like your goal to be completed, but then take it one day at a time and focus on making progress instead of reaching the finish line in as little time as possible.

3) Finally, be sure that you don’t view obstacles and setbacks as failures. The two are completely different.  An obstacle, setback or delay means only one thing:  it’s not time for your goal to be completed yet.  That’s it!  It doesn’t mean you failed; it doesn’t mean you’re weak; it doesn’t mean you’ll never achieve your goals.  It simply means you’re not done yet.  You’ve got to keep moving forward and find a way over, around, or through the obstacle.

How does eliminating the fear of failure make you feel?
What would you try to accomplish if failure didn’t exist?
The lines are open!

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My book TRUE SELF is the fastest inexpensive way (coaching is the fastest) to make positive life changes very quickly. Do you want to discover your core passions, dismantle your hidden, limiting beliefs, and realize your most desired goals? TRUE SELF will guide you through the process.

On this journey called life, one lesson we all need to learn is that our expectations hold great power!  Whatever we expect to find and experience in life is usually what we get. Why is that? Mainly, it’s because those are the things we focus on.

When you expect success and focus on it, your world will rearrange itself accordingly. On the other hand, if you focus on the possibility of failure while working toward success, you will send your brain mixed signals. This means that your efforts to succeed will be negated because you are subconsciously expecting to fail.

3 Ways to expect success

There are many ways that your expectations can affect your ability to reach your goals. Here are three important areas you should be aware of:

1) Attitude – Your expectations affect your attitude.  It’s amazing how much attitude has to do with success.  A negative or cynical attitude is enough to prevent you from giving your best effort and attention to your goals, which will lead to lukewarm results.

If you want to experience dynamic results, you’ve got to have a dynamic attitude.  You’ve got to be fired up, passionate, and committed to your goals as if your life depended on achieving them.  You should expect success and nothing less!

2) Action – Your expectations affect your willingness to take action.  Not only will a negative expectation taint your attitude, it will also determine the intensity and persistence of your actions.  If you expect things to go wrong, they usually will (Murphy’s Law).  If you expect to experience an unfavorable outcome, you’ll see little point in working on your goal as diligently as you could. A halfhearted effort can only yield mediocre results at best.

On the other hand, when you’re motivated and inspired about your goals and expect them to produce outstanding results, your determination will skyrocket and you’ll move forward in a deliberate way. When you expect success you’ll be filled with eager anticipation so there will be no reason to hesitate or procrastinate.

3) Interaction – Finally, your expectations affect the way you interact with other people.  People can sense a negative attitude even if you don’t say a word.  If you go into any potential partnership or opportunity with negative expectations, your potential partners are not going to be inspired by your attitude.  They’ll probably view you as an ineffective person who lacks confidence. As a result, they may not want to get involved.

But a confident, positive person with a clear focus and solid plan of action is the kind of person that everybody wants to work with!  Not only will you feel better by expecting the best, your potential partners and benefactors will be inspired by your vision and determination. When you expect success they can feel it and will be anxious to work with you.

What do you personally expect?

You expect success, right? Either that or you want to learn to expect success. Either way you are way ahead of the curve because you are focused in a positive direction. The next step is to take decisive action while maintaining the right mindset.

Rather than trying to explain the whole process in one article, I have created a free 7 part course called: Developing a Mindset for Success. If this sounds interesting to you just click the link to get started. All I ask in return is that you take action on the things you learn. Why is that so important?

Because as vital as it is to expect success, nothing happens until we take action. We must back our expectations with action to successfully produce our intended results. Action is the muscle of expectation.

Do you ever find yourself expecting one thing but focusing on another?
The lines are open!

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Do you believe that success is the opposite of failure? That’s exactly what most of us have been conditioned to think. If someone makes an all out effort to achieve some goal but doesn’t quite make it, what have they done?

Have they failed?

Well, that all depends on their concept (and yours) of success and failure. For some, the result alone is what determines if we belong in the winner’s circle or not. If life were a single, all or nothing event, perhaps we could afford to be that narrow minded. But that is not the way life works.

Life has a learning curve

Have you ever accomplished anything worthwhile that only required one attempt to get it right? Have you ever seen a baby go from crawling to walking without ever falling down in the process? Falling down is part of learning to walk because there’s a learning curve.

“You got to learn how to fall, before you learn to fly” -Paul Simon

This means that most successes will be preceded by a series attempts that didn’t quite produce the results we were hoping for. With that in mind, it seems like the course of wisdom is to develop a healthy respect for whole learning process, not just the final result.

Learning is succeeding

Anytime we learn from our efforts we are in the process of succeeding. Each lesson brings us closer to our intended result. Calling the learning process “failing” is not only inaccurate, it’s also emotionally discouraging.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” -Thomas Edison

If we allow ourselves to become discouraged during the process we may give up right before we reach our goal. How sad it would be to go through the learning curve and then never experience the benefits of our new knowledge.

People who understood the process

This short video is about famous success stories who stayed the course and never gave up. We can gain courage and determination from their examples.

How do you feel about failure now?
The lines are open!

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Because our life happens one day at a time, there is a tendency to view each day as a separate and independent event. While I am a big fan of living in the moment, it is equally important to understand how one moment relates to the next.

Life is a cumulative experience

Those with something to gain want you to believe that major changes can happen almost instantly and with very little effort. They try to convince you that you can be a millionaire, or the picture of perfect health, if you just buy their product and use it for the next thirty days.

Promises like that can sound very appealing. Don’t be fooled, there is no such thing as an overnight success, or even an overnight failure for that matter. Sometimes it may appear to be that way, but that’s just because we were not in a position to witness the whole process.

See the big picture

In actuality, success and failure are the result of prior choices and actions. Barring any unforeseen catastrophic events, your life today is the sum of all your yesterdays.

To succeed in any area of life we need to learn to view today, not as a single disconnected event, but as a major contributor to our future. This requires a special kind of awareness. It means being able to look ahead and see the likely consequences of what you are doing right now.

Shortsightedness eventually brings pain

If we don’t see the connection between are choices today, and our quality of life tomorrow, there will pain and disappointment in our future. We see this scenario being played out every single day.

One common example of this kind of shortsightedness is someone who eats and drinks without any regard for the long term consequences. Over the years their weight and blood pressure rise steadily. The function of their liver and pancreas is slowly impaired, and their level of physical activity decreases. Then, seemingly out of the blue, they are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, or worse yet, they have a heart attack.

Still no clue

What’s their response to their new reality? They either wonder why, or they chalk it up to getting older. When in truth, it was the predictable outcome of two or three decades of not associating today’s choices with tomorrow’s reality.

We could say the same thing about a relationship that slowly goes bad, or constantly rising debt that leads to bankruptcy. Failure to recognize and acknowledge that our future is the culmination of all the previous days and years is a sure path to pain and disappointment.

Awareness leads to success

On the other hand, we can make good use of the cumulative nature of life to help move us steadily in the direction of our goals and dreams. However, before we can do that, we need to adopt a different mindset with relation to how we view the accumulation process.

We live in a world that wants everything right now. People have linked their positive emotional anchors to instant gratification. They have no patients for, nor do they find any pleasure in the process. They just want the result without having to do the work. The problem with this mindset is that life simply does not work that way.

Learn to love the journey

Life is about growth and change, that is the journey we are on. If we only focus on the final outcome we miss the joy associated with our experience. In other words, we miss out on life itself.

On the other hand, if we live each day with no awareness of where it is leading us, then we have no direction and will never achieve any goals. What we want is the best of both worlds. We want to fully enjoy and experience each day, and know that it is moving us ever closer to the realization of our long term goals.

How can we do that?

1) Shift your mindset with a question. You need to weigh each day’s activities and decisions according to your long term goals. Simply asking yourself, “will this move me toward success or away from it?” will increase your awareness and change your perspective

This applies to personal goals, business goals, and relationship goals. For example, If you are considering a second helping of dessert, ask yourself if that will move you toward your weight loss goal, or away from it. If you are about to find fault with your mate, ask yourself if pursuing that conversation will strengthen your relationship or undermine it. Always consider the long term consequences before to make a decision or take action.

2) Learn to find joy in the process. I learned this from the legendary Bonsai Master John Naka. When I was relatively new to the art of bonsai he told me that if I did not learn to find enjoyment in the training process, I might as well buy finished bonsai trees and just be a collector.

But I wanted to create not collect. We are all the creators of our own life; we can’t just buy the life we want. Doesn’t it make sense to enjoy the creative process while staying aware of our overall direction? We do this by holding a vision of our desired future and finding joy in each step of the journey.

3) Review your actions weekly. Every week take a few minutes to look back and double check your direction. Are you still moving toward your goals, or do you need to make some adjustments? Were there any activities over the past week that did not support you goals and should be eliminated?

Then review your goals to see if they are still what you want. It is not unusual to discover that the goals themselves need to be adjusted from time to time to stay in harmony with who we are right now. Don’t be afraid to reevaluate your goals as you grow and progress.

Using the present to sculpt the future

As we can see, within the scope of normal circumstances, there really is no such thing as instant success or failure. Learning to maintain a constant awareness of how today’s choices effects tomorrow’s life will empowers us to create the future we want, while finding joy in the journey.

This is a guest post from Dr. Annette Colby.

If you are like most people, you have a goal or a dream that is meaningful and that you want to achieve. That goal may be related to personal growth issues such as weight loss, gaining self-esteem, finding inner peace, increasing your energy levels, or overcoming depression.

Or, your goal may include going back to school, entering a new career, or bringing your creative talents into a greater public light. Having a goal is the easy part. Attempting to move through your own inner obstacles can literally leave you terrified, completely paralyzed by your own fear.

If you have tried to reach your goal and stopped because you encountered a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, don’t give up. That is the nature of goals. They take you into new territory and bring you face-to-face with your own fears and doubts. The issue is not about how to avoid fear, but how to make positive decisions that boost your confidence while fear is present.

Every day, many people give up on their dreams due to self-doubt and fear. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Here are six steps to overcoming doubt and fear and bringing your own goals to life.

1. Make a Decision. Once you define your dream or goal, decide that you want to live this kind of happy and satisfied life. This may seem basic but many people never decide and commit fully to their dream. They simply keep “thinking” about it. Or, when the first obstacle appears and they give up. Make a commitment to yourself. Right now is not the time to worry about how to make it happen, or how you are going to move through your challenges. Instead, plant the seed of your dream inside of you and you commit to loving this seed until the day you can harvest the fruits of your efforts.

Honor your commitment to self. No one can let you down more than you can. Make a commitment about what you want and stand strong in your commitment. No matter how challenging, how fearful, or overwhelming it may seem, decide you are going for it! Why? For no other reason than because you want it. There are no should’s, have to’s, or weak choices. This is something you want for yourself and a choice you have made.

2. You Are Not Your Fear. As you move forward on your dream, doubt and fear are going to show up sooner than you might have expected. To move beyond fear, it is helpful to learn to separate yourself from your fear. For example, instead of thinking an all encompassing statement such as, “I am fearful,” learn instead to say, “There is a part of me that is fearful and doesn’t want to move forward. But somewhere inside of me there is also a desire to continue moving forward.”

Fear is not all of who you are, rather it is an emotion that you are experiencing. The key is to recognize your fear, avoid becoming identified with your fear, and keep breathing. Breathing keeps energy moving and prevents you from being consumed in fear’s heavy embrace.

No matter how scary it seems, decide to sit with your emotion of fear for the purpose of accepting its presence, but not necessarily agreeing with it’s point of view. Acceptance helps because avoiding it doesn’t make it go away, looking the other way doesn’t make it disappear, and ignoring it does not make it any less painful. So, breathe. Then tell yourself that even though you are feeling intense fear, you can still take action. Look fear in the eye and let it know, “You are not the boss of me!” Then take the necessary steps to gain new tools and strategies to move forward on your dream once again.

3. Change your attitude about failure. Long ago, a quote arrived in my email that read, “You try things, some work, some don’t, and you do more of what works.” These simple words suggest that the formula for success is that if you want to grow and succeed, you also have to be willing to fail. Certainly, no one actually wants to experience failure.

However, if you want to succeed at something new, you will most likely experience setbacks, obstacles, and failures along the way. To be successful, redefine failure in a manner allowing yourself to see failure as “information.”Failure is really just feedback telling you to evaluate your experience, utilize the information gained to adjust your plan, and then try a new approach. When you experience a failure – get up, dust yourself off, access the information gained, revise your course, and begin again.

4. Build Your Confidence Muscle. Although achieving your dream will bring up stress, fear, doubt, this experience is precisely what is necessary for a confidence breakthrough to occur. It is not enough to make self-supporting choices when your journey is easy, you have to do it when it’s hardest to do so. That’s because to break through what is holding you back, you have to go through the doubt. You can’t dance around it, wish it away, or analyze how to avoid the experience. Making self-empowering decisions under stress is what leads you authentic personal growth and solidifies inner change.

It’s the challenges of your journey that offer hundreds of opportunities to develop your confidence muscle and gain mastery over your experiences. Every obstacle, setback, or failure offers you a new chance to believe in yourself instead of falling into doubt and fear.

5. Decide You Don’t Have To Do Anything. Here is an experiment. For the next 48 hours, eliminate the words “I have to” from your vocabulary and substitute the words “I choose to.” Instead of saying, “I have to move forward on my goal” say, “I choose to take this specific action step today.” Or, you could just as effectively say, “I choose not to take any action step today.” Either choice allows you to understand that you are the person in control of your choices. You set the priorities. You are responsible. You have control. Feel how empowering this simple change of words can be.

6. Ask Yourself Empowering Questions. Certain types of questions can lead you to gain new insights and new motivation. Ask yourself the following questions, allow yourself to answer them from your heart, and see where your truths take you: Are your dreams important enough to change your daily lifestyle?

• Do you want to be responsible for your own life decisions?
• Do you have the courage to go after what you want with tenacity and see it through to the end?
• Can you accept that fear is part of the journey and move forward anyway?
• Can you recognize that fear is only your leader if you allow it to be?

Being able to overcome your doubt and fears so you can bring into reality the life of your dreams is one of the best experiences in the world! Take control of your life by practicing these five simple steps and learn how to tame your fear and create a happier, more successful life.

What do you think? Agree or Disagree?
Did I miss an important point?
Let’s talk about it.

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This is a guest post by Larry Scott at StarLightWalker

If you are anything like me, the idea of failure conjures up all sorts of negative images and feelings.  Indeed, one of the hardest lessons for me to learn (and one that I must admit that I am still in the process of learning) has been the understanding the fact that failing at a particular task does not mean that I am a failure.

I am not sure where this tendency to identify myself with the outcome of my efforts originally came from, but there is no doubt that it is a deeply ingrained, habitual pattern of evaluating myself and the world.  For as far back as I can remember I have always had a sense of needing to “earn” love and acceptance - by getting good grades in school, merit badges in Boy Scouts, and later in life through promotions and salary increases at work.

Within this worldview my value as a person was not something intrinsic; rather, it was tied to my achievements, and as a result there was a strong sense that success made me a better person and failure made me a worse person.  The power was in success,  not failure. Given this habitual perceptual frame, it takes persistence and an almost stubborn optimism to remind myself that I am not my outcomes!

Results do not equal value

When you step back and examine the premise of this worldview, it becomes apparent that there is something insidiously self-sabotaging in the agreements that support its structure.  In what way could failure – whether at school, at work, or even at play – cause me to be a worse person?  And for that matter, why would success have the power to cause me to be a better person?

What linkage is there between my ability to perform a task or achieve a goal and my worth as a person?  When you give it a bit a thought, it becomes clear that this premise is absurd.  My value as a person has nothing to do with whether or not I succeed or fail at a particular task.

Self worth is not accomplishment

The absurdity of the idea of earning value through success becomes particularly clear if we apply it to very specific examples.  Am I a better person if I am successful at badminton and a worse person if I fail to hit the birdie?  Am I somehow a better person if I succeed at making a soufflé?

If it is clear in these instances that the entire premise of the statement is nonsense, why would we buy into this worldview when the subject is the grades I get in school, the level of income I earn, or the job title I have at work?  Yet how many of us, particularly success-driven self-improvement nuts like me, have bought into these kind of beliefs?

Failure can stimulate personal growth

In the realm of personal growth, my experience is that failure and crisis have the power to stimulate growth whereas success tends to limit the opportunity for growth.  When we succeed there is little pressure to examine our ideas or behaviors, as the fact that we are succeeding indicates that our current strategies and tactics are working.  As a result, when we are on a roll – succeeding – we tend to repeat our behaviors in an effort to maintain the status quo.

As a result, while these periods may exhibit incremental growth and improvement they very seldom precipitate radical breakthroughs or transformation.  Rather it is failure that is the harbinger of dramatic growth and transformation.

When we fail we tend to ponder, to re-examine our strategies and tactics – and in so doing we are often forced to question the core assumptions and beliefs that are the foundation and basis for our current life strategies.  Failure urges us to question the foundational concepts of ourselves and our world, and in so doing encourages us to expand our perspective.  And it is in this questioning of our preconceived views that miracles and magic occur.

How do you view achievement and failure?
Do you find yourself linking results to self worth?
What’s your response to this article?

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