Learning From Setbacks

Failure Should Be Your Teacher, Not Your Undertaker 

All situations in life teach us something, particularly the ones we label failures and setbacks. The key to understanding these lessons is to treat failures and setbacks as learning opportunities and nothing more. Here is advice from motivational speaker Og Mandino on how to do this:

Whenever you make a mistake or get knocked down by life, don't look back at it too long. Mistakes are life's way of teaching you.

Your capacity for occasional blunders is inseparable from your capacity to reach your goals. No one wins them all, and your failures, when they happen, are just part of your growth.

Shake off your blunders. How will you know your limits without an occasional failure? Never quit. Your turn will come.

Many people have written about bouncing back and learning from setbacks. Here are six pertinent quotes you may want to refer to the next time you think you have failed at something:

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. ~ Denis Waitely

I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed: and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying. ~ Tom Hopkins

No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes. ~ William E. Gladstone

When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power. ~ Mary Pickford

All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, but by rising above them. ~ Charles Caleb Cotton

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value. ~ Hermann Hesse 

However, the best comment on this subject is this anonymous one: "Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker."

Remember, just as one solitary success does not make you a successful person, one failure or setback does not make you a failure.

No matter how many attempts it takes you to achieve a dream or a goal, as long as you exude continuous persistence in pursuit of your desires you will attain success in your life. 

We have more thoughts on personal growth and development, plus hundreds of motivational quotes, in our book Project You: Words of Wisdom. It is available at Amazon in paperback ($6.45) and Kindle ($3.88) formats. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is also available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

The Importance of Persistence In Personal Development

Persistence Needs To Be Applied With a Deliberate and Considered Approach To Your Personal Development

When it comes to your own life and self development, it is necessary to eliminate the concept of "failure" from your thinking. 

Instead, treat any perception of failure as a mere setback and as a learning opportunity experience.

Persistence is the willingness and resilience to keep pressing on, even when you feel like your stores of commitment, determination, optimism, and passion are all but dried up. Take comfort in the knowledge that these internal wells of personal strength, courage and energy will never be totally empty, even when it might seem so. 

7 Key Elements of Life Full of Adversity and Challenges 

Many battles require physical, emotional and/or spiritual strength to win. Some battles, however, also require persistence. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

Having an indomitable will ─ an innate and deep-seated capacity for persistence and perseverance ─ can make all the difference in the world.

As Buddha said, "In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins ─ not through strength but by perseverance."

As they are for the streams and rivers in this world, persistence and perseverance can be the roots of your own victories over confrontations, adversity and the obstacles, hurdles, problems, difficulties, and obstructive people that you will come across on your personal journey through this thing we call life. 

We have more thoughts on personal growth and development, plus hundreds of motivational quotes, in our book Project You: Words of Wisdom. It is available at Amazon in paperback ($6.45) and Kindle ($3.88) formats. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is also available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

More Thoughts on Overcoming Personal Adversity

The Road to Personal Improvement Is Paved With Persistence and Resiliency 

When times get tough and your situation looks bleak, perhaps these words from the novelist Charlotte Bronte will provide comfort and encouragement: "If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcomed."

Being persistent and remaining on the path you've chosen will habitually require a great deal of patience, especially if you are having to deal with other people and all the baggage, troubles, emotional strife, self doubt, pessimism, anger, anxiety, and fear they carry with them. As the French poet Jean de la Fontaine said, "Patience and passage of time do more than strength and fury."

7 Key Elements of Life 

Rather than get angry at problematic situations and people, or attempt to blow through either of these with the power of your own convictions or actions, a judicial application of patience and fortitude will usually go a long way in creating a resolution. As the Irish proverb states, "For what cannot be cured, patience is best."

Here are three quotes by very different personalities that highlight the virtues of being patient and the pitfalls of being impatient:

Wise and slow; they stumble that run fast. ~William Shakespeare

The twin killers of success are impatience and greed. ~Jim Rohn

Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error. ~Jean Baptiste Moliere

Persistence and perseverance also need to be applied with a deliberate and considered approach to your own self development. 

As David Fischman writes, "The true road to personal improvement is not miraculous; it is slow and calls for a great deal of perseverance, but it is indeed possible to progress along this road, and your effort will be amply repaid."  

Please take 15 minutes and write down some ideas on how you can be more persistent and resilient in facing the challenges, hurdles and obstacles today in the seven areas of life depicted in the visual above. 

And, if you or someone you know is looking for good motivational ideas and quotes in this area, please see our book Project You: Words of Wisdom, available at Amazon for just $6.45 in paperback and $3.88 in Kindle format.

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, also available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. 

Persistence Overcomes Adversity, Leads To Success

There is a great deal of self satisfaction gained when you get past the obstacles and hurdles people put between you and your desires. 

Persistence is what frequently separates the successful from those who are not. According to Dale Carnegie, "Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." As the Japanese proverb goes, "Beginning is easy ─ continuing is hard."

Too many people are ready and willing to discard their aims, desires, dreams and even purposes in life by casting everything overboard as the first signs of difficulty or misfortune manifest. They see obstacles and failures as defeats, or even worse as misinterpreted "signs" that things are not meant to be the way they had planned, hoped or dreamed.

As we mentioned in the previous blog post on Overcoming Adversity: adversity is a fact of life and it cannot be controlled or avoided. 

Persistence is all about overcoming adversity, and knowing that hardships, problems, stumbling blocks, obstacles, and difficulties are simply ways of making you a better and stronger person. After all, as the old English proverb states, "A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner."

The great Roman poet Horace, who lived just before the time of Christ, identified this characteristic of persistence, writing, "Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant."

And in more modern times, Michael Jordan had this to say about dealing with problems encountered: "If you are trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them, everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Find out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."

There is a great deal of satisfaction to be gained from knowing that you have gotten past, through, around, over, or under the obstacles that life and other people put between you and your desires.

Additionally, a great deal of self confidence is to be gained by overcoming hardships and defeating adversaries who get in your way. As Harry Browne wrote, "When you know that you're capable of dealing with whatever comes, you have the only security the world has to offer." 

That security is your own heightened self confidence. And when it comes to facing adversity, that is the best security to have. 

Please take 10 minutes now and write down a list of the challenges and problems you face, and what steps you can take to help you become more persistence and resilient in handling these. 

For motivational help in this area, please see our book Project You: Words of Wisdom, available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book, Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. 

Overcoming Adversity

The Key to Overcoming Adversity is Persistence 

Adversity is a fact of life. It cannot be controlled or avoided. 

What we can control is how we react and respond to adversity.

Adversity, of course, can be a powerful positive in creating personal growth and development. As motivational author Mike Dooley notes:

When there is ease and simplicity in your life, it is because earlier you learned a lot.

When there is resistance and obstacles in your life, it is because there is even more to learn.

And learning more is pretty much the main reason everyone is still here. 

Life is so full of unwanted and unexpected twists and turns, ups and downs, that it often seems like we spend the majority of our time reacting and trying to prevent or manage these things. However, you cannot manage the unexpected, so the best strategy is to be prepared to handle these situations as they arise with confidence in our own abilities and perseverance. This is what separates the ones who overcome adversity with those who allow others and circumstances control their fate. 

The latter live their lives defensively, trying to prevent bad things from happening to them and their loved ones. The smarter strategy is to live life knowing that you can overcome the bad things and life's little hurdles that will eventually happen.

The key to overcome adversity is persistence.

Commitment is dedication. Persistence is the determination to see something through to the end, not quitting when obstacles appear or the going gets rough. U.S. President Calvin Coolidge wrote in a letter that "Persistence and Determination are omnipotent." His thinking was not far removed from Benjamin Franklin's advice that "Energy and persistence conquer all things."

Adds W. J. Davison, "The life that conquers is the life that moves with a steady resolution and persistence toward a predetermined goal. Those who succeed are those who have thoroughly learned the immense importance of plan in life, and the tragic brevity of time."  

We often read of successful people who faced times and situations where they wanted to give up, chuck it all in and move onto something else. Yet something kept them going ─ a persistence driven by either an internal flame of commitment or an external source of motivation.

Those who accomplish their goals understand that, in the words of William Arthur Ward, "Impossibilities crumble in the crucible of persistence; difficulties disappear under the power of persistence."  

Take some time this weekend to think of ways to book your personal resistance and persistence for the hurdles and challenges you face. We will have some more thoughts and tips on overcoming adversity this weekend, so please return to the Project You Life Blog over the next few days. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-selling personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life. It is available in Kindle and paperback formats on Amazon. 

Authentic Friendships

Good Friendships Are Fragile and Precious

For most people there are four main categories of relationships ── friends, lovers, family, and co-workers or those they partner with in commercial endeavors.

All of these relationships have one quality in common:

A meaningful and mutually satisfying relationship is not based on the length of the time spent together; but rather on the foundation built together by all parties involved.

As we will touch upon your relationships with lovers, family and co-workers in subsequent chapters, let us focus for now on the relationships with friends.

Friends stick with you through thick and thin – and you stick with them when they go through troubles and hard times. Friends respect the decisions of each other, even when they violently disagree with their choices. Most important, friends can be openly critical of each other without this impacting their friendships.

Here’s a good, detailed description of authentic friendship from author Stephen E. Ambrose in his novel Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals:

Friendship is different from all other relationships. Unlike acquaintanceship, it is based on love.  Unlike lovers and married couples, it is free of jealousy. Unlike children and parents, it knows neither criticism nor resentment.  Friendship has no status in law. Business partnerships are based on a contract.  So is marriage. Parents are bound by the law, as are children. But friendship is freely entered into, freely given, freely exercised.  Friends never cheat each other, or take advantage, or lie.  Friends do not spy on one another, yet they have no secrets.  Friends glory in each other's successes and are downcast by the failures. Friends minister to each other, nurse each other. Friends give to each other, worry about each other, stand always ready to help.  Perfect friendship is rarely achieved, but at its height, is an ecstasy.

The bonds of true friendship occur when there are no minute traces of jealousy between the parties in the relationship. When you can feel totally proud, happy and supportive of your friend’s success without feeling a single pang of jealousy or bitterness, that is when you will know true friendship abounds.

These words of advice from motivational speaker Tom Hopkins certainly ring true, “Surround yourself with people most like the person you want to become. Stay away from anyone who can or will bring you down.” 

As Buddha pointed out, “An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.”

In order to attract good friends you need to be a good friend first to others and to yourself. You attract what you become and what you are. As English churchman and historian Thomas Fuller said, “Be a friend to thyself, and others will be so too.”

At the same time, you want to be the kind of friend who sticks by others when the going gets rough. And you want the same in others who befriend you. Or, in the words of Oprah Winfrey, “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

Friendships are precious, and should be treated with care. As writer and thinker Randolph S. Bourne wrote, “Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any other fragile and precious thing.”

Benjamin Franklin had a simple and straight-forward philosophical approach to friendship, which he espoused in his classic book Poor Richard’s Almanac:

Be civil to all;
sociable to many;
familiar with few;
friend to one;
enemy to none.

This article is excerpted from our popular book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. 

Creating Authentic Interpersonal Relationships

Authentic Values and Qualities Create True Friendships 

It is natural to want others to like us; to find us enchanting, likable, friendly, attractive, engaging, personable, worthwhile, approachable, and dozens of other positive descriptors. 

Except for those who dwell within the Self Actualization segment in the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, everyone wants people to like them, even those who say they don't care what people think about them.

In fact, it is natural to care about what others think about you. It is also natural to have a desire to be respected, appreciated, loved, wanted, and viewed positively. Social scientists say that interactions with others are a vital component of our sense of self esteem, overall happiness, and even feelings of well being. 

Likewise, when we experience rejection, hear that someone has been bad mouthing us, or find out that someone does not like us our levels of self esteem, happiness and well being are negatively affected. It is not unusual for personal rejection to cause momentary bouts of deep pain, emotional outbursts and even intense sadness.

Being accepted by others is one of the key rungs on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. So to say that this is an important facet of our human journey is a bit of an understatement. 

Unfortunately, most of us put up false fronts and use a myriad of disguises in vain attempts to attract others to us, or for us to get invited into desired circles and groups. These attempts at trying to make others like us, even when it means sacrificing part of our persona or authenticity, is nothing more than a game of masks and false identities. It is also a futile endeavor, especially over the long haul of one's life journey.

It is probably due to the falsity of the approaches used by everyone playing this game that most non-family friendships and relationships throughout one's life are temporary and impermanent. Very few relationships and friendships can withstand the scrutiny of reality when the masks and false fronts are removed, and the true and authentic selves emerge over time. It is little wonder that the label "false friend" is readily applied when friendships and relationships end in acrimonious, bitter and spiteful fashion.

The secret to creating authentic relationships is to know, understand, respect, and love yourself. 

Once you are authentic with yourself, you can be authentic with others. Authentic people do not judge themselves or others, but rather seek authenticity in others and base their relationships on the type and level of authenticity found.

Being attractive to the kinds of people you want, desire, or need in your life means exuding your authenticity in every action taken (or not taken) and every word spoken (or not spoken).  

When others witness and experience your own authentic values and qualities, the ones you will attract into your life are more likely to be genuinely appreciative of your values and qualities. They are also more likely to be emotionally, mentally and spiritually in-tune with your emotional, mental and spiritual selves. 

This article is excerpted from our book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.