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A Better You
by Jo Ann
Fore
Believe
and Achieve
Replete
with failures, maybe Walt Disney should have stopped
taking chances – maybe he
should’ve just quit.
He
tried to enlist in the military and was rejected
because
of his age. His small business venture in commercial
art fell bankrupt. When he initially tried to distribute
Mickey Mouse, he was told it would never work – ‘A
giant mouse on the screen would terrify women.’
The
most ironic failure, to me, was when he was hired
to work
at the Kansas City Star newspaper and ended
up being fired for ‘lack of creativity.’
Years later, his company – The
Disney Company – purchased ABC, which owned the
Kansas City Star. Initially, Walt Disney was fired and
told he wasn’t creative enough. Yet it was his
creative animated classics that bought him the very company
from which he was fired. (www.hiddenmickeys.org) History books are stocked with failure-turned-success
stories. Many who choose to examine their mistakes,
and learn from them eventually taste the sweetness
of success. Walt Disney, creative legend, understood
this.
Be Willing to Fail
Dale Carnegie also understood the
importance of being willing to press on in spite of
your failures. He shared, “Most
of the important things in the world have been accomplished
by people who have kept on trying when there seemed
to be no hope at all.”
Failure can be a price of admission, of sorts, to
success. It often prepares us for what lies ahead.
Successful people are sometimes the people who just
kept failing until they finally succeeded.
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball
team. Steven Spielberg dropped out of high school in
his sophomore year.
What if Walt Disney, Michael Jordan, or Stephen Spielberg
had quit when they failed? The world, as we now know
it, would be different.
We have to be willing – when things go wrong – not
to quit. If we fail, and quit, the effort we have invested
was a waste. When we press through to success – it
all becomes worth it.
But how do we keep going in the face of failure?
Attitude Often Determines the Outcome
Thomas Edison
said, “Success is 90% attitude
and 10% knowledge.” It’s simple: Our attitude
influences our success. We have to learn to guard the
attitudes of our mind.
Here are some general things to keep in mind as you
learn to make a difference in your attitude:
1. Focus on the positive not the negative
Do you
automatically think the worst? Work on eliminating
negative dialogue from your mind. Seek out the positive
in the situation. A negative outlook is toxic.
2. Along with your thoughts, learn to change
your emotions
After you learn to draw on positive thoughts,
it’s
important to learn to change your emotions. Positive
thoughts will help change your mood, but it isn’t
necessarily an automatic response.
Emotions are reactions, not feelings. We can learn
to control them.
3.
Don’t act on impulse
Learn to think things
through objectively. What are the facts? Do your personal
feelings distort your interpretation?
Delay your reaction until you have thought things through
completely.
4. Visualize success
Focus on your desired outcome.
See it. Taste it. Feel it. It might sound a little
silly – but it works.
Preparation is important, but it won’t carry
you to the finish line.
5.
Understand we can’t always do everything
right from the start
Perfection is a stressful, often
unrealistic goal. Things are going to happen. Learn
from your mistakes.
Remember:
We become what we watch, read and think about. We
tend to emulate the stories we are most drawn
towards. If we want to be a successful person, we
need to be spending time – even through television,
movies and books – with successful people.
What
goes in our minds comes out of our mouths into our
lives.
Failures can turn to success if we believe – and
stick it out.
Jo
Ann Fore welcomes your comments about this article or suggestions
for material you would like to see in future articles. Email her at: JoAnnFore@msn.com. A
Better You is published every Saturday.
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