Let me share someone's life history with you. This was a man who failed in business at the age of 21; was defeated in a legislative race at age 22; failed again in business at age 24; overcame the death of his sweetheart at age 26; had a nervous breakdown at age 27; lost a congressional 53 of 279 race at age 34; lost a senatorial race at age 45; failed in an effort to become vice-president at age 47; lost a senatorial race at age 49; and was elected president of the United States at age 52.This man was Abraham Lincoln.
One day a partially deaf four year old kid came home with a note in his pocket from his teacher, "Your Tommy is too stupid to learn, get him out of the school." His mother read the note and answered, "My Tommy is not stupid to learn, I will teach him myself." And that Tommy grew up to be one of the great inventors history has ever seen. Thomas Edison. He had only three months of formal schooling and he was partially deaf.
Colonel Sanders, man behind KFC, at age 65, with a beat-up car and a $100 check from Social Security, realized he had to do something. He remembered his mother's recipe and went out selling. How many doors did he have to knock on before he got his first order?.
These people could have quit. But they didn't. They took the defeat as a challenge to conquer. To them, defeat was a detour and not a dead end, and this made them one among the people who reshaped history.
Trust yourself. Create the kind of life you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into the flames of achievement.
Thomas Edison failed approximately 10,000 times before he invented the light bulb. How many of us quit after three tries, ten tries, a hundred tries, and then we say we tried as hard as we could?
Setbacks are inevitable in life. A setback can act as a driving force and also teach us humility. In grief you will find courage and faith to overcome the setback. We need to learn to become victors, not victims. Fear and doubt short circuit the mind.
Ask yourself after every setback: What did I learn from this experience? What should I do to make sure this doesn't repeat again? Only then will you be able to turn a stumbling block into a stepping stone.
Disappointments will cross your path in the future. Every day brings its share of challenges. Still, we can choose to enjoy each day as it comes, purposing not to dwell on the things we can't change. As our attitude towards life changes, we identify the opportunities left in front of us. This Hope re-ignites in our hearts, and we begin to dream again.
In the darkest of your life, see the tiniest spark of light rays. Kindle them. If you decide to give up, you have decided to fail. If you decided to fail, there is nothing more disastrous than that.
Sometimes everything turns upside down. Bad things happen to good people. We cannot choose our parents or the circumstances of our birth. What do we do from here; cry or take the ball and run? That is a choice we have to make.
Between stimulus and response is our greatest power - the freedom to choose. This takes me to the habit of "be proactive". It says that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.
Look at the word responsibility - "response-ability" - the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.
Success is not measured by how high we go up in life but by how many times we bounce back when we fall down. It is this bounce back ability that determines success.
To deal with a setback the right way, take a step back and look at the situation objectively. You are probably feeling hurt, worried, upset and maybe confused. Most likely, a swarm of emotions is flying around in your head. Try to put these aside so you can seriously ponder the problem you are facing.
People who have overcome obstacles are more secure than those who have never faced them. We all have problems and we feel discouraged some time. Most people get disappointed; but winners don't get disheartened. The answer is perseverance.
An English proverb says, "A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner." Everything is difficult before it becomes easy. We cannot run away from our problems. Only losers
quit and give up.
Success is a journey through thorns. Path is not filled with roses to you. You have humps ahead of you. Your car may get break down. Gas gets over. You seem to get totally lost on the way. Winners never give up. They take it as a challenge.
The game is still going. You are still in the team. Time is running. Plenty of opportunity left before that final whistle ends the entire show.
Remember: BEHIND EVERY SUCCESS STORY, THERE IS A STORY OF A FAILURE. BUT FOR WINNERS, FAILURE IS ONLY A STAGE BEFORE SUCCESS"
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