Failure is Not Trying

“I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed; and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.”
—Tom Hopkins

No matter how hard we have tried to reach goals in our lives, but have fallen short, the only time we truly failed were the times we gave up and let go of our goals. Life is a series of events that we label success and failure, but we all know that the difficulties in life are what teach us and the times in our lives when we felt the most distressed usually turned into the most spiritual growth.

If we feel ashamed or guilty for our past mistakes, or for failing to reach a particular goal, it’s time to let go. We let go of the guilt and shame and move forward. We must forgive ourselves for not being perfect because that is not expected of any human on this earth.

To fail is to give up. To fail is to never try. Not reaching a goal just means we need to try harder or set a new goal. It’s good to set our goals high, but we may need to set them a bit lower in order to achieve them. They need to be realistic or they are not worth striving for, and only set us up to not reach them thus setting off feelings of being ashamed.

Remember that we never fail if we continue to grow. We may not have reached goal A, but we learned to be more patient along the way. Or goal B eluded us, but along the journey to try to reach it, we learned a new skill or way of coping. Just as people are placed in our lives to help us grow and to meet our needs, so are our plans and goals means of growing and learning even that which we may not have strived for.

Do not feel ashamed for failure; instead let it give you momentum for the next goal.

Setting Goals

“The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.”
—Earl Nightingale

Setting goals is an important part of growth in all areas of our lives. Most of us have things that we want or want to achieve that may seem too far out of our reach to get. But that should not stop us. Some of what we want is well within our means of achieving; we just fail to reach for it.

Setting a goal is the place to start. And it’s especially important to write down our goals. There is some kind of magic that occurs when writing down what we want on a piece of paper. We need to believe that we can achieve our goals as well.

Once I was setting some yearly goals with an instructor of mine. I had one goal that was especially scary; something I wanted to do, but had so much fear about it that I said, “That’s what I want to do, but just because I want to do it doesn’t mean I will.”

The instructor told me I might as well wad the paper up and throw it away if that’s how I felt. He was right. I set the goal but was already talking myself out of achieving it. We have to try to reach our goals and it is okay to set them higher than we think we can reach. If we fall short we probably will still get farther along with something than we would have had we not set the goal.

Some people set goals as New Year’s resolutions; others take the time whenever they decide there is something they want. It doesn’t make a difference when we set the goal, what matters is that we do it and that we believe we can achieve it.

Setting a goal that we know is unachievable is not a good idea, because it sets us up for failure. Deciding to lose 100 pounds in two months and making that a goal is not going to bring it to fruition. Setting a goal of losing about 5-10 pounds a month and 60-100 pounds in a year is more reasonable and much more likely to be achieved.

Write your goals down and believe you can achieve them and great things will happen.

Counting Blessings

“Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.”
—Fyodor Dostoevsky

Most of us spend a great deal of time wanting something that we don’t have. We want a relationship, or a better one. We wish we had the car our neighbor just got. There’s a better job out there, we just know it, if we could only have it. And the list goes on.

And while there’s nothing wrong with wanting more out of life, there is the issue of being grateful for what we have. There are those who would think they had won the lottery if they had the lives that we lead. Like those who sleep in cardboard boxes while we grumble about our heating bill being too high. Or the guy down the street who has to catch the bus to work and stand in the cold to wait for it, while we complain because there’s a bit of frost to clean off of our windshield.

Then there is the issue of relationships. When we are single we wish to be with someone. And while that’s human nature and a normal attitude it is not the worst thing to be alone. It feels lonely and sad, especially around holidays. But if only we can stop and think about those who may be alone because of the recent death of a spouse, or the wife whose husband is cheating and she is dealing with that issue at the moment.

There will always be those who appear to have more than us as well as those who have a lot less. We ought to count our blessings every day rather than bemoan that which we do not have. Life, God, the Universe, gives us what we need whether we know it or not. And life is not always fair, just ask a homeless person about it.

Sometimes those who have no place to call home have been as fortunate as us, but circumstances caused them to lose what they had. It’s true, some end up that way because they refuse to work or made bad choices, it’s not our place to judge.

Our job is to be grateful for what we have and to give what we can to others. Whether we give material gifts, or love, a hug, or a listening ear, we have things to offer those in need. And those who need something from us may not be the homeless family; it may be the person who sits on the pew next to us at church, or our coworker, a neighbor, or our best friend.

Being glad for what we have and giving back will bless us more than anything.

Needing Others

“We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.”
—Leo Buscaglia

Many people have the idea that it is wrong to need other people. Sometimes this is because they have experienced extreme pain from the loss of a loved one due to death or a breakup of some sort. And some people were taught as children that they should not ever need anyone.

Neediness and needing others is not the same thing. People thrive on love and nurturing. We were created to be in relationship with other people. Some of us need more interaction than others.

Sometimes because we have opened ourselves fully to another only to have lost that person in a devastating way we retreat from all interaction, or we get only so close to those in our lives. We have our guard up. We build walls that may never be penetrated. We constantly watch people come and go in our lives because they cannot cross our boundaries, the ones we have built on fear.

And when we have these walls we lose out on a lot in life. Yes, we may avoid pain, most likely we do avoid a great deal of it, but we also don’t allow ourselves to love or be loved and without that we are empty shells. God works through our relationships and interactions with others. When we shut off from people, we close the door on God as well.

Getting and giving love can happen in many ways. Even if we don’t have a romantic partnership we can give and receive love from others, and we should do this even if we have a special love relationship. We give and receive from our friends, community, coworkers, neighbors, anyone in our lives who we can share kindness with will offer us opportunities to share love.

If we have a particular need and it is not getting met we can ask for help from someone close to us. Sometimes we may just need a hug or a listening ear. And it’s almost guaranteed that a good friend would be flattered that we asked and then in turn feel they could come to us for the same.

To continue to grow emotionally and spiritually we need to love and be loved. We cannot ever expect one person to meet every need so it’s important to have a circle of people and love in our lives.

Giving and receiving love is important and something we should all seek; never be ashamed of it.

Doing Our Best

“God makes three requests of his children: Do the best you can, where you are, with what you have, now.”
—African-American Proverb

Life, with all of its challenges and decisions, really comes down to one simple thing: doing the best we can do with what we have. And our best can change with time if we are learning and growing, it’s just that in the very moment where we are, we only have the potential to do our best, not what another person can do.

As a beginning guitar player sometimes at home I can work through my music and play pretty well. I may not play it perfectly, but for me I can see progress and be proud. But let me show up for my music lesson and rather than hitting a few bum notes, I’m doing good to hit a few good notes. It’s performance anxiety that causes me to function less than I am truly capable. It’s my issue of worrying about what someone else thinks about what I’m doing or even about me that causes nervousness to be an issue.

What we must keep in mind as we go through our lives and meet various challenges is that nobody expects us to do anything but what we are capable of doing. If the quote above is true, then even God only expects us to do our best. We don’t have to worry about what someone else thinks if we aren’t harming them. We really can only do our best so there’s no reason to worry about doing anything more.

We all do things that others wish they had the skills for. We don’t think less of them for not being able to perform a task well that we can do without much thought or effort. Most of us will never play quarterback as well as Peyton Manning, nor be as good of a musician as Eric Clapton, or even be able to act as well as Reese Witherspoon, but it doesn’t stop us from performing our best within our lives. And as great as those three people are at the tasks they perform, I’m sure each and every one of them spent countless hours learning their trade, and still do practice in order to be skilled.

We strive to grow and learn new things, but we don’t berate ourselves when we are not able to perform as good or learn as quickly as we would like. We just keep trying.

Doing nothing is the only assurance of not making a mistake.

Expectations

“Anger always comes from frustrated expectations.”
—Elliott Larson

It is difficult to go into any situation having no expectations. When we enter into any relationship, whether it is work related or personal, we want certain things. But our expectations may be far off from those on the other side of the relationship.

What’s especially difficult and frustrating is when there is a lack of communication in the situation, when not only are we not getting our needs met as expected, but the other person is not capable of entering into conversation about the relationship.

It isn’t fair to become angry when another person does not meet the needs that we expected. We simply need to allow that person to be who they are and do what they do. If we need to move on we do that. If we need to adjust our expectations we can do that as well, but we don’t try to demand that they become someone they are not simply because of our expectations.

The best way to enter into any relationship is to not have expectations. Often our expectations can cause a relationship to fail before we even give it a chance. If we want more from someone than they are willing or able to give, we have choices about that situation. We can try to demand more and if not given our desires we move on. Or we can allow the other person to give what they are able and not demand more. Then we seek to have those needs met from other people.

Perhaps we need to be more forthcoming about our needs in a relationship if we are finding ourselves frustrated or angry with the other person. Maybe if they knew what we wanted they would be more able to meet those needs. And if they are not able to meet our expectations we can stop waiting and hoping for that to happen.

Most importantly relationships require communication — from both parties involved — in order for expectations to be met. Sometimes the other person tells us what they want and we are so busy trying to get our needs met that we don’t hear them. They may have told us in the very beginning what they wanted out of our relationship and we still try to force our desires. Listening to the other person is just as important as saying what we want.

To avoid frustrated expectations communication is essential.

Love is the Answer

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
—The Bible

It is often written and discussed that people operate out of two things. One of those is love and one is fear. When we are envious, boastful, rude, self-seeking, and angry, among other negative acts we are coming from a place of fear. When we want good for others, when we are honest, hopeful, faithful, kind, and true, we operate out of love.

Whenever we find ourselves in a situation where we feel uneasy and unhappy, we can think about love. We try to react in a loving way rather than out of fear. If someone is irritating to us and we let it get under our skin we will end up reacting and making matters much worse. But if we think of a way to react in love we will most likely find at least some peace in the moment.

Instead of talking bad about another person we can either keep our mouth shut or try to think of something nice to say about them. We all have good things and not so good things that we do. If we focus on their bad stuff that’s all we will see, but if we attempt to see them through the eyes of love we may discover something better.

Often if we are loving to another person, especially those who aren’t all that loveable, they will start to change. It may be a very gradual change, but if we keep at it they will change. Most likely the ones who seem so unlovable are that way because they don’t have self-love.

And maybe that’s true for us too. Maybe when we operate out of fear it’s because we don’t have enough self-esteem. We don’t love our self enough to love another. In that case, we need to work at treating our self from a place of love and not fear.

Treat yourself and those around you with love and see your world begin to change.

Keeping at Growth

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dealing with fears or feelings when new situations trigger them can be a difficult thing. We may have thought that we had worked through certain issues and fears and they no longer existed in us, only to find out that some new situation triggers those same old feelings.

Take for instance the fear of abandonment. Maybe in our lives someone walked out, a person who was important to us turned their backs and left our lives. So we fear that happening again. And maybe we worked through it so we just don’t feel it every time we have close personal relationships with others. But then we sense that someone may be about to leave us and those old fears and feelings are as fresh as they were when the tragic event happened.

Feeling them again and experiencing that fear doesn’t mean we haven’t grown; it’s just something that we may have to work on more in our lives. It’s a sensitive issue in our lives, one that may take more work than some other issues.

And there probably are a number of old feelings that may be living under the surface in our lives that can be triggered by the smallest event. What we do with those feelings and how we handle them can be new for us even if the feelings are old and maybe not even be based on reality.

We can stop and really think through the situation, realizing that some of what we feel is based on a circumstance or event that has nothing to do with the present. We may need to talk it over with someone. Prayer and meditation work. Not panicking, but rather stopping and using a recovery behavior we know has worked for us will bring us peace quicker than letting the fear take over.

As much as we learn and mature, we still never reach perfection, so we should not expect that from ourselves. Using things we know to help us through the rough spots is the best solution when old issues come flooding back at us.

Sometimes feelings are out of sight, out of mind, but lurking just below the surface.

Choosing the Route

“The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.”
—Samuel Smiles

There’s a mountain I like to climb near where I live. One side of the mountain has a trail that for the most part is pretty easy to climb even for those who don’t exercise much. The other side is difficult, a lot more so than the easy side.

No matter which side of the mountain is climbed, once you get to the top it’s the same. The same view, the same mountain. So if given a choice there is no reason to take the difficult side just for the view, unless you are looking for more challenging climb.

And so it is with life. We all have many challenges, hurdles, mountains even. We don’t always have choices about taking different paths to master those challenges, but when given an option to choose the easy side or the difficult side, we can choose to take the easy one, knowing that the view, the victory is the same.

Sometimes we make life more difficult by fighting it. We try to figure out the future or we live in the past. We hold grudges and fail to let go when forgiveness would be easier. We don’t do what we know is the right thing and instead choose to move forward in something we know is wrong. We try to make people into who we want them to be instead of letting them be who they are.

Choosing the easier route in anything we face in life, especially the most challenging, will help us reach our goals. We stop fighting what we don’t know and go with what we have experienced as means to an end for us. One person’s accomplishments may have been reached in a different way than ours, but that doesn’t make our way wrong. If it works for us, we ought to do it.

When given a choice, choose the path of least resistance.

Following the Lead

“Being led is not an extraordinary event, reserved for mystics and ascetics; rather, it is the normal order of things.”
—Harry McMullan III

Living our lives and including in that efforts of growing spiritually may be a new concept for some. And many of us may have been bogged down in religion in our lives so that in essence the true spiritual connection we sought with God was missing.

But once we begin to seek the connection, and work on it to the best of our ability, there will be times when we will know that we got an answer to prayer, or we were healed of something that needed healing, or even that we are being led to do a particular thing.

As a writer by profession that act of putting words together isn’t a spectacular event in my life. So to say that I felt led to write something, which happened to me in a way that I would never have expected, may not make a large impact on others, but it did on me when it happened.

And while it may not have been an extraordinary event, it was a moment of true spiritual connection for me. When a connection like that happens it cannot be denied. Sharing it with others, putting it in words isn’t such an easy thing, even for a writer. It’s just something that you feel and you know within that it’s real.

And just as surely as you know the sun will come up in the morning, you know there is a Higher Power who is there, who guides you, and listens to your requests. It’s a knowing that can only be found within, but once it’s there it will remain a source of hope and faith for the coming days and years.

We never know what events in our lives will give us this knowing, but I believe that if we are open and willing to receive it, we will get it.

A spiritual connection is ours if we seek it.