We all will fail in life and the secret for many people’s success is that they’re willing to fail more often and more quickly than those afraid of failure. They understand that failing is a natural precursor to success. You have to try new things – different things – if you want to improve your life. Sometimes, you’ll have great intuition and choose the right action to propel you towards your goals. Sometimes you’ll get lucky. But almost always, if you fail to take action (or if you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result), you’re going to be stuck in the same place. So even though it may not look like you’ve failed from the outside looking in, is it true? Sure, you don’t have one moment to point to where something didn’t work out. But isn’t the end result of not achieving your dreams a bigger failure than swinging for the fences and occasionally striking out?
There are a lot of reasons why people don’t achieve their dreams, many of which are outside of our control. We can accept that because if we try to control everything (even things we have no power over), we will be fighting a losing battle. But what we can do is control our thoughts, words, actions, and attitude. We decide what we read, who we listen to, who we hang out with, and how we talk to ourselves. We decide what words to say (I can, I will, how can I?) and what words to not say (I can’t, I don’t know how, I give up). We decide whether we want to get up each morning when we say we will or whether we hit the snooze button and sleep in, or whether we follow through with what we said we would do. Are we generally happy and not complaining? Are we putting out positive vibes where others want to be around us or are we so negative that others actually feel worse after hanging out with us?
Don’t be the reason why you don’t achieve your dreams. Live intentionally. Plan your next steps and follow through with them. Think big and act big. You need to take enough action and occasionally swing for the fences instead of always playing it safe. If you don’t ever reach your lofty goals, that’s fine. But when you think back, have no regrets over why you didn’t achieve it. Give it your all, do it ethically and in a way that is true to you, and go from there.