What happens when you fail? Let me answer from experience.

It goes a little something like this for me, I start to lose faith in my ability to get anything done. My confidence in accomplishing my daily to-dos goes way way down. The same discouraging thoughts creep in and I feel like I ended up right where I started.

That is an open and honest look into my thought process when failure steps into my mind. It is never pretty and it never feels great. But there is ALWAYS somewhere to go after failure.

Try Try Again

You may feel like failure is where you end, game over no more tries you’re done. But the cool thing about the world we live in is that it is full of second, third, and fourth chances. The one determining factor of how many chances you get is yourself.

I am very familiar with failure in many if not all aspects of my life. The truth is that we all have failed ourselves or someone else at one point or another. Causing us to feel regret and pain that doesn’t feel too great.

That is the crossroads we face each time we fail. Do we sulk in the regret of our decisions or do we use the pain and the guilt to launch ourselves in the direction of self-improvement. You must remember that you cannot change your past but you CAN shape your future.

The actions we take today are what bring us the results of tomorrow.

Commit To The Future You Desire

Everyday I am constantly reminded that the lives we live are extremely short. That simple reminder is the most terrifying and motivating thing to me.

Everyone has dreams and aspirations for themselves. Unfortunately, we are born in a world where the common belief is that only a select few get to live them out. But it is a matter of discipline and an obsessive commitment to those dreams.

We often struggle with committing to our dreams. This is a massive obstacle that won’t go away overnight. It is a massive boulder that we need to chip at and erode like water to a river. We need to be fluid and relentless when attacking our goals.

When we stop worrying about the result we fall into the flow of the process. We begin to value the small day-to-day wins over the overarching result. Fall in love with journeys not destinations.

Commit To The Struggle

I struggle with consistently writing and getting my online presence out there because when you’re starting out it can feel like it’s all for nothing. I don’t see the results I want right away and that is discouraging. I put all of this effort into something that doesn’t give immediate gratification. And to be honest that SUCKS.

As of right now I am not in love with the process, I actually hate the process. It makes me want to quit and settle for something easier and much more attainable. (wow super motivational and inspiring right)

But then… I look at other things I’ve accomplished in my life, and if you’re struggling with falling in love with a new process then I suggest you do the same.

I remember when I first started playing tennis and I moved like a newborn deer on the court. I hated going to practice and it was five days a week. So five days a week I was going to something that I hated… at first.

But I kept going and slowly but surely I started to fall into a groove. My forehand got consistent, my serve got stronger, I got BETTER. I didn’t hate tennis anymore, I hated how bad my backhand was, I hated how I would just barely miss a shot that I knew I could have made. On the flip side, now I loved how a solid forehand felt and how acing my opponent with a serve they couldn’t reach put a smile on my face.

This is one personal instance of many where I really fell in love with something I hated at first. My hate didn’t leave though, like energy it was transferred into a hate of my weaknesses because now that I found where I excel it was easier to see what I needed to improve on.

I find it much easier to do anything once I know exactly what I need to work on because I now have mini goals that make me feel like I am taking considerable steps to my end goal. I have found a part of the process to fall in love with.

I’ve done this other times in my life, with video games, sports, and fitness. Each one never started out with flawless execution and commitment. But the common denominator between all of these would be that I STUCK with them and consistently worked at each skill, every week.

Conclusion

It is crucial that we make a bold commitment to our dreams. There simply isn’t enough time for us to waste the limited days we are given wishing that we committed to our dreams. The struggle is worth it. The process is worth working through. We need to commit to the process and fall in love with what we’re great at so that we can focus on what we need to improve.