“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” — Maya Angelou

 

 

It was not until I had had some success that I learned about failure. In the early days of my Endurance career, I trained hard, rode terrific horses, had a good mentor, and my confidence grew with each successful finish. It was when I had my first pull. A pull amounts to an incompletion, or a did not finish, a DNF. With the imagined failure of the DNF, I had to face my disappointment. It was a blow so hard the wind was knocked from me.

Once I could catch my breath, I realized failures give us opportunities to improve, and that is precisely what I strove for.

Not everything works out as we think it should, and it is ok. It is perfect. Our failures prepare us for our successes.

The times I have been knocked down allowed me to rethink my direction, my methods, and the mindset I was stuck in. But, of course, as all horse people know, you must get back in the saddle as soon as possible if you get bucked off. But at times, I did not want to get back on.

As a competitor, we want to succeed. To do well, to enjoy the accolades from finishing a goal, and yet many stop short of success when faced with a setback.

We need to redefine the meaning of success. For example, to win may be the goal, or to finish and do our best may be the measure.

Maya Angelou says it perfectly:

Do the best you can until you know better, Then when you know better, do better.

 

When I started a horse on their endurance career, my goal was to ride them to the best of their ability, knowing their capability was something to be built upon, not static but ever-changing.

My bar was set, not by the standards of others but by the mini-goals I had quietly set for myself and my horse. It was to finish wherever that landed us, for the race was nothing more than a training ground. The reward was the pride within, knowing I had accomplished the task I had set.

Understanding others did not know the goals I had set; I needed to be careful not to be caught up in their opinions when my finish, in their minds, was less than stellar. I would remind myself the slogan for my sport is,  “To Finish is to Win.”

Striving for the top-notch is outstanding, but getting there is a process. And that process is filled with trial and error, hopes and despair, starts and failures. Yet, through these travails lies the path to accomplishment.

Be it a surgeon, an athlete, an artist, an inventor, or anyone who has achieved success, knows; it takes countless failures to perfect the seeming effortlessness of their skills.

Why some succeed, and others fail resides in our mindset. The behavior defining us is whether we can fall and get back up.

3 Keys to Unlocking Your Ability to Succeed

1) We must admit sometimes we screw up, and look at ourselves with strict eyes, realizing what we did, didn’t work. Some like to sluff it off, denying they failed, but our subconscious mind knows. Without putting consciousness into it, we cannot learn from our mistakes.

2) Stop judging ourselves when we fail, berating ourselves with the should have, could have, and would have’s. If we do our best now, learning what did not work, our next attempt will be one step better than our last. To speak down to ourselves only helps to keep us down. Instead, allow yourself to search for the lesson to be learned, and a win will be achieved.

3) Be understanding of our own emotions, our feelings of defeat and disappointment. Embrace them but do not dwell on them; instead, turn them around, using them as the impetus to move forward.

What separates those who succeed and those who fail is one action. They adjust their mindset, allowing them to pick themselves up and do it repeatedly. A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins.

So, change how you see a setback, keep giving it your best shot, fall, and get back up. Repeat.

Let the gift of failure fuel your future successes. Without the thousands of falls, you would never have learned to walk.

I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.

—Estée Lauder