Move past failure

Stare at failure in the eye...it'll stare back
Hold your gaze but don't drop your shoulders...one slip and you're in trouble
Keep staring, don't drop your guard... Failure has a free schedule and fights you from the head down
Now turn around. Walk the other way...the longer you stare, the longer you'll be on the same level as failure

When I first saw this poem hanging on a classroom wall, it sprang an array of emotions from within. My first response was... wow, this is quite an amazing piece of poetry; who wrote it? Can I meet them and get an understanding of the inspiration for them writing this poem. Unfortunately, that meeting never came around but the consensus everyone I talked about it with was this...thinking about failure and feeling self pity about it is accepting defeat. To become a stronger person, we have to move past failure.

Failure is present in life for a reason. It's a learning curve. Some failures are small and some are big. Never let it hold you back from retrying something you didn't achieve the first time. How can we ever know what we are truly capable of achieving if we do not move past failure. Children are the greatest source of inspiration with sweeping failure aside. You never see a young child who's been given a tricycle or bicycle accept failure if they can't ride it the first time. No. Until it's a smooth ride, they're persistently ruthless in their pursuit of overcoming failure because that goal of doing it right spurs them on. Be inspired by your failures and let that desire to achieve your goal spur you on instead of being bogged in a cloud of doubt.

There are a lot of girls who share stories with me about guys who have rejected them.  A knight in shining armour will never rescue them from the tower of lonliness. I feel sorry when they think like this because it is the very thing that poet is talking about. Stuck in a staring contest with failure, they're in such an innate state and cannot think outside their own disappointments. Never let somebody who's going through this convince you it's true. Instead smile and say... "You know this isn't true; you're not unlovable. It's time you moved past this slip up. The great thing you know now is that you're one person closer to finding that perfect match." If you fail a year at university or don't get an acceptance letter into the Premier sports team, don't be discouraged by it, use it as a motvating factor to help you achieve success. Tell yourself "this isn't going to happen again" and believe it. Break through the ice. It will dissolve into water if you tell it to because you are the captain of your ship and you have two choices. To be guided by the slow gentle breeze of failure, or the strong gusts of ambition. When you truly have a goal in mind of what you want to achieve and break loose from the chains of self doubt, you're ready to move past failure.

Connect on a personal level

It was a weird feeling being deemed unsuitable for the role and wandering where on earth I was going. Aspirations of making it in the military had been dashed, so it was back to square one in the planning process. The leadership, confidence, commitment, dedication, motivation were definetely there and naively, I thought "Hey, that's good enough." Walking out with nothing to show for all created a vortex where all the positivity went and only negative thoughts swirled around aimlessly. Looking back now, my main problem was I had failed to truly connect with the people who had the biggest influence on the outcome on a personal level.

Each of you will be able to recount a situation similar to this in your own life, where there's been a time where a big opportunity has come your way to land an awseome job, create secure business networks, or build a warm, lasting friendship with someone. For a while, everything is going well and things are naturally falling into place. All of a sudden, it starts turning pear shaped. The interviewer notices you stutter when answering questions, the customer feels pressured by you, or that friend feels like the relationship you've made is too superficial and begins feeling more alone in your presence than out of it. It's a thousands stabs in the heart when this happens and naturally you feel inclinated towards blaming yourself and that person solely for the relationship not working out. It's difficult terrain to navigate through when this happens but there is always a chance to make amends for previous mistakes. Learn from them and work towards building a better you because of it.

A huge learning curve in life is that sometimes, you have to hold your tongue and let others talk. Connect on a personal level. Anybody who can successfully do this with whoever they are dealing with has that x factor to them. Well liked people are often those who take an interest and are willing to listen to you and what you have to say. Successful chairmans, CEO's, Activist leaders and friends all have that x factor and are consistently able to go beneath the surface and hold a deep relationship with those below them. When somebody does that with you, it tells you many things about their character but above all you say "Wow, they really do care about me."

Once you've established trust within any sort of relationship, enable yourself to ask questions with substance. Show your friend(s) that you really do care about them and want to share a connection with them; the more you open up, the more likely it is they will do likewise. Connect deeply with them by showing they're the reason you want to be in the friendship. Perhaps my chances on the military selection would have improved if I'd known that; the panel would have noticed this and said "Hey this guy would fit in nicely. Look at the kind of questions he asked us." It's really magical how a super deep friendship allows you and your friend to intuitively know how you're feeling in a situation without hearing a thing. The dusty rubber stamp always decieves the critics but not our friends. If it's a job interview, smile and be positive. Ask the interviewer what he's enjoyed about working in this particular business, how he's made it to where he has now. You'll not only feel a lot more at ease, so too will the interviewer and your likelihood of getting that golden ticket increase. If it's international business, research the culture of the country and ask your business client about what he enjoys and doesn't enjoy about these things. Long term retention of future business with him improve that much more when you can naturally connect with him on a personable level.

You can't expect a blind man to describe a mountain in the distance and likewise you can't expect a meaningful relationship to be created when you ask yes/no and surface questions. Go deeper, create the trust and smile, knowing that you have the ability to make a face value relationship, a personal one.

If you don't have time, make time

What's the one word you can think of that stops you from achieving a dream you have, a goal you've set your sights on, a task you'll feel great taking on? Lack of financing? That's always a possibility but it is possible to borrow from the bank. No, I'm talking about something which you cannot create. Time.

There are only 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. As much as many of us desire there to be more hours available, it just cannot happen. So often as human beings the focus is on the here and now with time. What needs to be done today? Are the kids ok to get to school? Who will take up most of my time at work today? What will I cook for dinner tonight? Should I finish this work or leave it until tomorrow? Bed time, already? And just like that you're in bed pondering thoughts about the many things which were left undone. The e-mails from friends, the 100,000 piece jigsaw puzzle which hasn't been touched for months, a 20 minute trip to the gym. Then, without second guessing you whisper to yourself "I just don't have the time."

Anybody who says that is waving a white flag in their defence. Saying you don't have enough time is not true and people who utter those six words know it. Too often we devote a huge amount of time towards pointless pursuits. Watching TV, surfing the net, video games, eating, and even procrastinating. Think about how much time you decote towards these activities in which you achieve very little. To say you don't have enough time for your big goals in life is a lie. The reason you do not have time is you're not determined to make the time needed to achieve these goals. What are your big goals? I have several at the moment but the longest boat ride is getting a University degree. One thing which is essential to success with tertiary studies is never ever falling behind. If I don't get around to doing a reading or working on an assignment during the day for whatever reason, the opportunity cost is staying up late and catching up on those readings or assingments and sleeping less. You can't eat an orange in one bite. It must be slow and steady. It's the same with any University Degree. There are going to be times in life where time seems to be stretched but it's up to you whether or not your long term goals come first. 24 hours may not seem like a lot but in a year there are 8760 hours. If you seriously want to improve your physique then making 187.5 hours in the year to achieve that doesn't seem so bad. If you want to stay in touch with friends who live far away, setting aside 60 hours a year leaves you feeling more accomplished as a person than any TV programme can. If you are married with children, wake up an hour earlier every morning and work on that puzzle. Who wouldn't be proud of their mother completing an extremely huge jigsaw puzzle.

Make time for yourself and before you know it, you will be ticking major goals off and you can smile, knowing you made time for yourself to achieve that goal. The bigger the goal, the more rewarding the completion of it feels. Dive in head first knowing you can do it because you can make time for it.

Set the Bar High and Jump

One of the most important things anyone can encourage you to do is have high expectations for yourself and others. A huge bearing on the kind of person people think we are before meeting us is based on our friend circle. It doesn't matter what great things you may have done or currently are doing , if they don't know about it, the company you keep determines the box you've been slotted into in those person's eyes. Just one reason you need to set the bar high and jump until you make it.

Life is going to throw all sorts of curve balls at you and often the rug will be ripped out from under you. Only you can decide on how you're going to react in this instance. Stay down and out and the bar will be low and it'll be too easy jumping over it; doing things you already know you're good at, procrastinating and eternally feeling sorry for yourself. Don't ever let that happen to you... when society sees someone down, they'll poke their ugly head through the door, point their grimy, snot filled fingers and say "I told you so."

I was recently gutted when a girl I like announced she had a boyfriend. I have been her friend for well over a year and realised quite quickly how challenging it would be to convince her I'm Mr. Right. Now she's taken, the fondness I have for her remains; she's still terrific and a true delight to be around and I know that other people can see this too. Her character is one where being around her makes you a better person and in turn your expectations of what to expect in a friend or partner get raised. Her bar is always high.

The crowd will never clap someone that is jumping at half their potential because so many people have come before you and done that. It never feels good when you know you're capable of so much more but you're stuck in a realm of self doubt with a low bar. Crowds want to see something special. The most elated feeling is when the bar seems to be unjumpable and people are unsure whether or not you'll make it but you've worked hard at this goal, you've put in the dedication, commitment, and enthusiasm needed to succeed and when you've made it, enjoy the moment but then tell yourself "I can go higher."

Is your glass half full of half empty?

I'm an ultra-endurance athlete. I sacrifice endless hours in my week to commit to all the training required.  Although it's a big part of my life, I do not talk freely about it with many people. It's just something I do. Nobody needs to know I trained for two hours in the morning and again in the evening after University. It's just something I do. Why should someone be stuck trying to figure out why I voluntarily put myself through such extreme pain when the answer is really simple. My glass is always half full.

What are you trying to achieve in your life. These big goals you have set yourself, how much dedication and time have you injected into reaching these goals? Is it something you think about everyday or a little take it or leave it sideline? More improtantly, is your glass half full or half empty?

When your glass half empty, you are beginning to feel defeated. Half empty shows you think its only a matter of time before things go pear shaped and all of a sudden, the glass is broken and that dream has faded. A half empty response shows that you're only willing to put in as much work as you deem necessary in order to reach your goal. The path towards this dream is a straight flat road to you. But it's never that easy. How does a half empty person react when there's three times more work they need to put in. Worthwhile goals in life are hilly, jagged, twisty highways that seem to stretch forever. The city of accomplishment always appears to be closer than it is as a mirage when in fact it's still miles away. That's why my glass is always half full. I never think about what I've already used up to achieve my goal because it counts for very little in the long run; I'm concerned with how much more I still need to do. Something unexpected may come up and I just have to get inside of myself and keep pushing onward and forward. As soon as that goal has been achieved the reflection on the finer tasks can be remembered but after that, it's time to start on the next goal. A full glass to start with, a half full glass at the finish.