I thank God that I live in a country where dreams can come true, where failure sometimes is the first step to success and where success is only another form of failure if we forget what our priorities should be.
Plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate resposne to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure.
Everybody saw my successful advertising and thought I was a big success. But, behind those successes were several failures that I had to learn from before I made it. I've always looked at failure as just another step you need to take to reach success.
There was rarely an obvious branching point in a person's life. People changed slowly, over time. You didn't take on step, then find yourself in a completely new location. You first took a little step off a path to avoid some rocks. For a while, you walked alongside the path, but then you wandered out a little way to step on softer soil. Then you stopped paying attention as you drifted farther and farther away. Finally, you found yourself in the wrong city, wondering why the signs on the roadway hadn't led you better.
Cultivate your desire for success to be greater than the fear of failure; Failure is merely a pitstop between where you stand and success. Failure allows you to learn the fastest; Failure inspires winners and defeats losers.
Here is the paradox of the thing we call freedom: the farther we wander from God and the more we try to break free from him, the more enchained we become. Every step we take away from Him leads us farther from the freedom of Jesus and closer to the cruelty of Cain.
Both half success and half failure must be considered as a full failure!
Failure: Is it a limitation? Bad timing? It's a lot of things. It's something you can't be afraid of, because you'll stop growing. The next step beyond failure could be your biggest success in life.
Most people sabotage themselves because they aren't mindful in the moment. Let your daily actions be governed by your goals & dreams. Whenever you are making an important decision first ask if it gets you closer to your goals or farther away. If the answer is closer, pull the trigger. If it's farther away make a different choice. Conscious choice making is a critical step in making your dreams a reality.
Now one does not think during creative work: any more than one thinks when driving a car. One has a background of years — learning — unlearning— success — failure — dreaming — thinking — experience — back it goes — farther back than one's ancestors: all this, — then the moment of creation, the focussing of all into the moment. So I can make — "without thought" — fifteen carefully-considered negatives one every fifteen minutes, — given material with as many possibilities.
If success were easy, then it would not necessarily be true success. Some of history's most successful people learned to cope with failure as a natural offshoot of the experimental and creative process and often learned more from their failures than their successes. By taking the attitude that failure is merely a detour on the way to our destination, hope can blossom into success.
Every failure is a step to success.
Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.
Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I've met people who don't want to try for fear of failing.
Divorce is never a pleasant experience. You look upon it as a failure. But I learned to be a different person once we broke up. Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success.
When you are in the line of your duty, it is like standing in front of a line of posts, and every post is in line. But step one step aside, and every post looks as though it were not quite in line. The farther you get away from that straight line, the more crooked the posts will appear. It is the straight and narrow path of duty that will lead you and me back to the presence of God.