Rebound with Enthusiasm

“Action is the foundational key to all success.” - Pablo Picasso
In last weeks thought grenade, I shared how fear of failure is the root cause of so many failed ideas. “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage,” Dale Carnegie had said. Imagine the deer in the headlights effect, fear drives people of action to freeze dead in their tracks. Only the deer that is quick on its feet and has its wits, will break out of the paralysis and bounce out of the car’s headlights and out of harms way.

“Do, or do not. There is no try.” - Jedi Master Yoda
If you are a Star Wars fan, Yoda’s words to Luke when he wasn’t trusting the power of the force are a good reminder of our choice for action or inaction. If Luke hadn’t embraced Yoda’s thinking, Luke would be stuck in the swamp and the movie would not have created the Lucas Star Wars dynasty that exists today. While my husband says the last paragraph was a bit dramatic, I would add this...what would Star Wars be if Luke did not fulfill his dynasty? He would have squandered his talent away. (and, wouldn’t Leia still be trapped on the death star?)

“Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure” - George Edward Woodberry
Taking it another step further, if you believe that failure is part of living. And, if you live your life to the fullest, there is no question about it, you will make mistakes. You will enter into ventures that don’t succeed. You will throw out your best ideas only to have them fall flat. You will be unprepared at a critical moment. You will overreact and you might even offend.

Richard Carlson, Author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff writes, “I've yet to meet a person who is exempt from these oh-so-human facts of life. So, perhaps the most important question isn’t so much whether or not you will mess up, but rather how quickly you can recover when you do.”

If we aren’t exempt from our own humanness, it is inevitable that we will make mistakes. We will have setbacks. We might even make those problems into much larger problems because of our lack of ownership or accountability or maybe our sense of rightness. I think some of my bigger faux pauxs have occurred because I ignored the problem or avoided addressing the misunderstanding. In one case specifically, I trivialized the act making someone feel very insignificant and found out later it was huge disappointment to them.
But, there is hope. Because It is how you deal with these things which determines what happens next. I say recover quickly and rebound with enthusiasm.

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill
Recovering quickly involves the recognition that something is wrong coupled with the insight that what is wrong might be your fault and if so admitting it, apologizing for your involvement in it and moving on. If it isn’t your fault, recall the old adage which says “To err is human, to forgive is divine,” then forgive, let go and move on.
Rebounding with enthusiasm isn’t forgetting the event happened, but using it as a foundation in learning. Malcolm Forbes agrees with this. After all, he is quoted as saying, “failure is success if you learn from it.”

Despair.com has a wall calendar that includes a picture of a ship sinking. The tag is Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. After I laughed and realized how very wrong it was, I had another thought. As student on this planet called Earth, we all learn a thing or two from our failures and what a very human gift to allow others to learn from our mistakes.

Thank you for letting me share,
~stacy