Sabotage

Sabotage

A well known famous blogger, Seth Godin, had an article today about how we fail because we sabotage ourselves by failing to make an effort.

It is a corollary to the point of view I have been making about failure is a term we give to  a time frame. That doesn’t make it an absolute. First look at Seth’s points:

“Or consider the way we resist opportunities to lead, to connect, to do work that matters. We don’t resist because we’re not capable of it… we resist because if our marketing fails, if we don’t get the job or earn the trust, then we’re off the hook. No promises made, which means no promises to keep.

We know more than enough about marketing now. We know how to craft a story that will spread, we know how to find and lead tribes. The thing we have trouble with is making the commitment to do it even when it’s frightening and difficult.”

Then look at some points on failure:

Doug Yeamen, a personal development guru, said you can tell if it was a commitment by the result.

Tony Robbins, well know personal development counselor, says success is having the hunger and the right strategy.

Both imply that there is a door in every wall. If at first you don’t succeed this is not failure. Select another strategy. Only a time frame makes it a failure and if you create long term objectives, there  never  has to be  failure.

In the short term you are not meeting your objective. This means you did not have enough time or you did not have the right strategy. If you quit, it was not a real goal.

Did the U.S. think that getting to the moon was impossible or just a goal that needed an adequate amount of time and determination? Failing to get a rocket launched in the short term was not a failure.

If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, when is it a failure? It is only a failure in the short term.

I hit a weight I did not like years ago in spite of hours a week of exercise. I realized that more exercise was not the solution. It required a change in diet. Most people do not like to change their calorie consumption. It can rarely be done quickly and successfully. Now after four years I am down 30 pounds.

I needed a new strategy.

It’s how you look at your real goals that matter. I was in the real estate industry during the melt down working on high rise condos. That industry totally disappeared. Just like the jobs for many of the 6 million formerly employed. They are not failures at their jobs, they have had a short term set back on having a career that sustained them.

The long term goal is being self sustaining. So now that means being retrained. There is rarely failure of achieving the goal if you look at the real goal correctly. Someone may pine at their failure to find true love. Once again, if that is a goal and a commitment, you have to examine your strategy. You have until you die to find your true love.