3. Don’t Be Surprised By Failure
I know, it sounds bad to ask someone to basically expect failure. But the greatest athletes fail. The greatest doctors fail. The greatest people in their respective fields fail. Everyone fails, but those who find success do some combination of trying harder, using smarter strategies, and trying more times.
Thus, when you fail, it should not come as a surprise, but as an expected part of your journey to success. If you expect to fail sometimes, you won’t be slowed by it. Show me one successful person who hasn’t failed. I’ll wait.
4. Know Your Natural Advantage
There’s one critical advantage you have over failure. You only need to succeed ONCE, and when you do, it will make up for all prior failures in that area.
Edison failed thousands of times before he invented the one light bulb that improved human lighting forever.
When you find the right partner, previous failed relationships will be a distant memory, drowned by the love you two share.
Once you find the right strategy, you can use it over and over. For example, my struggles to exercise ended when I discovered the power of a mini habit to get me moving forward.
Your haircut might be bad now, but once you find the right style, you can get it cut that same way every time. Donald Trump’s hair is a good example of this. ?
My career started off horribly. I couldn’t get a job for a year out of college. I had student loan debt that my degree wasn’t helping to pay off. I had to move back in with my parents. This blog floundered for over two years. I was 28 years old and still living with my parents. I was failure incarnate. Then I wrote Mini Habits. One book changed everything. Today, I can travel the world, live wherever I want, work as much or as little as I want, and I don’t have to answer to a boss or work in a cubicle. Even better, the strategy has changed thousands of lives, giving my career a strong feeling of meaning and value. To me, that’s success.
