Have you had a challenging day or week? Feel a little tired or discouraged with a current situation? Ready to throw in the towel and quit something?
Don’t worry. It’s very normal to go through times of feeling that something in life stinks and all there is to see and feel is the current mess.
Here is something neat to ponder during those times, though. When doing battle with discouraged feelings, take a look at this report and reflect on this man’s record of failure. It is a testament to how humans can learn and grow and win despite the losses and defeats.
Failed in business in 1831
Defeated for legislature in 1832
Failed in business again in 1833
Elected to legislature in 1834
Sweetheart died in 1835
Nervous breakdown in 1836
Defeated for speaker in 1838
Defeated for land officer in 1843
Defeated for congress in 1843
Elected to congress in 1846
Defeated for re-election in 1848
Defeated for senate in 1855
Defeated for vice president in 1856
Defeated for senate in 1858
Elected President in 1860
Who was he?
He was a simple, uneducated, country boy who refused to allow his uncongenial circumstances to stop him. He refused to be a victim. He refused to accept failure. He refused to listen to people who told him he was crazy. He refused to stay down when he felt like nothing was going his way.
Simply put, he picked himself up no matter what and kept on going after his dream. He educated himself and did whatever it took to keep moving in the direction of his passions.
Who was he? Abraham Lincoln.
If you reflect back on your life, you can find patterns of the times you grew the most. Many of those times were probably a result of some kind of previous ‘failure,’ maybe even a series of them.
Remember: children don’t fail when they are learning to walk. They fall down over and over again. It is the falling that teaches them and strengthens them.
Each failure is a learning experience. And the faster people pick themselves up, reflect on the past occurrence and go again, the faster they can achieve their goals and dreams.
So with this in mind, choose the one thing that may not be going exactly as you wish right now and do one thing to move you closer to achieving the result you want. And remember, life is about learning and growing.
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John Assaraf is an international bestselling author, speaker and entrepreneur with a passion for brain research and quantum physics. Visit him at JohnAssaraf.com.
* Key Points To Consider: We can choose to either see adversity and times of challenge as life simply trying to beat us down, or we can make the decision to look beyond that simple outlook and focus instead on one that will serve us — one that says, the challenges we are experiencing are meant to allow us the opportunity to grow in some way — to emerge stronger, and better prepared for some eventual success that will be ours in the future.
Two very different ways to see things — not easy to do, but one will keep you stuck, while the other will serve you and allow you to become better for having faced it and ultimately overcome whatever challenge life threw at you. That my friend is worth considering! Here’s wishing you much success. Remember, it’s your life, LIVE BIG! — Josh Hinds
-What did you learn from the ideas shared in the article? Do you have any thoughts on overcoming and succeeding in spite of life’s challenges?