Inspire Me Today | November 8 2012

If you have ever hit a wall of failure at top speed, you know the paralyzing feeling that takes place inside your body.

That paralyzing feeling stops you in your tracks, turns a great thing into your worst nightmare. If you have ever poured your heart and soul into something and somehow, someway, it failed, you know what it feels like.

This feeling of defeat can lead you down two roads. One is the road to nowhere, this road is the road that keeps you from getting out of bed in the morning, changes your beliefs about yourself, changes the beliefs you have about others, and sends you into a spiral of depression.

The second road is the road that leads you from a feeling of defeat to a feeling of triumph. This is the road less traveled, the road to understanding that you and you alone can overcome any failure. If you choose to!

This road is the hardest road to walk. It means being triumphant over your thoughts of total defeat. It means changing those crippling thoughts that always seem to pop into your head when you lie in bed at night, drive to work or have a quiet moment alone.

To overcome these feelings, we need to dig deeper than we have ever dug into our hearts and soul. We have to understand and believe that this defeat was for a reason, but what reason? Did you learn something in your journey? Did you meet interesting people? Did you become a stronger person? Or did you force feed yourself the needed knowledge on how to do it a different way?

Try to stay focused on what you learned in the process. If the journey to reaching a goal is the big prize, the greatest feeling, then the journey to failure should be looked at the same way, no? Any defeat you meet is simply temporary if you keep striving toward your success – whatever your definition of success is.

You’ve heard this before, I’m sure. Everyone has heard it from the likes of Edison, Earl Nightingale, and Steve Jobs, but knowing that successful people say it doesn’t stop that crippling feeling from hitting you like a train, does it? You think, “Well it’s easy for them to say.” Just remember, it is easy for them to say, but it was just as difficult for them to overcome the feelings as it will be for you.

It is not an easy thing to do but you NEED to do it or else you risk the chance that these feelings of failure will destroy your vision, purpose, and goals. Whatever it is that you are fighting for, the people you are trying to help need you to succeed so you can help them.

Believe in yourself, your dream, your vision, and most of all seize the WOO, that window of opportunity that only temporary defeat can bring. It’s called growth!