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Success is mostly about failing a lot
Woody Allen once said "Seventy percent of success in life is showing up". It seems obvious, but convincing yourself to follow this advice can sometimes be difficult.
We tend to see a successful person as some type of freak - lucky individuals who somehow never messed up. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most successful people have had many failures. What distinguishes them from their less successful peers is that they had enough determination to pick themselves up and keep going.
When we hear about a new successful person - whether in sport, business or the arts - they often appear to come from nowhere. One day you've never heard of them, and the next their name seems to be everywhere. What you don't see, and what the media often doesn't report on, is the many failures that bought them to this point.
We only ever see great sports people, like Tiger Woods, playing spectacularly. We never saw a young Tiger going through the difficult training that all great sports people must undertake. We don't see the missed shots, the poor swing which was improved by training, or the competitions he lost on the way up to the top.
Look into virtually any successful person's background, and you will see a similar story. Some go through devastating losing streaks before hitting on a winner. Take Steve Jobs, who was sacked from Apple, and went on to start the relatively unsuccessful Next software. In the mid-1990s, both Apple and Steve were looked upon as has-beens, but by the mid-2000s, Steve had become CEO of Apple and Pixar and was one of the most celebrated businessmen in the world. Despite all the frustration, humiliation and failure, he plugged on and forced success to return to him.
Fear of failure can be crippling. Our bodies are actually programmed to make us feel bad about it. The reaction to doing badly is physical as well as mental. However, you must overcome this fear. In the long run, those who keep trying despite the inevitable failures, will be the most likely to succeed.
Treat your struggle for success like a winning poker strategy. Most good card-players realize they won't win most hands, so they bet small to begin with. Then, when they see the more rare chance to win, they bet big. This lots of small losses and some big wins strategy can really pay off.
Success is mostly about failing a lot. Get out there and try things out. If at first you don't succeed, try again until you do.
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