A Successful Journey Has Many Pit Stops At Failure

Dear Friend,

The only way to invite failure is to stop trying. While success gives you accolades and appreciation, failure leaves you with a setback, often at a point which seems far away from your destination. In this dark time, gathering your shattered confidence and deciding to give another shot to your aim requires an unparalleled level of grit and drive. One of the problems with hard work is that it does not give you any glory. All the glory is reserved for the ultimate success. Because of this, aspirants and students lack the determination to gather their efforts once they falter. It is very similar in the case of an International cricketer who is used to playing in front of filled up stands but is then dropped from the team and has to play domestic cricket in empty stadiums to make a comeback. This is never easy. All the success stories where the protagonist rises from the ashes to conquer all odds seem fascinating but are never easy to emulate and aspirants would know it better than anyone else. They sweat out in the solitude so that their success can shine throughout the surroundings. However, against all these troubles, if there is one beacon of hope for the aspirants, it is this— many people have done this before. They have failed innumerable times only to get back on their feet and reach their goal.

There are thousands of examples of women athletes quitting the game once they become mothers and start their families. However, Magnificent Mary, as she is fondly called, has always been different. In the face of the most difficult circumstances, all she did was to put her head down and work harder than the last time. Her opponents have been harder, taller, stronger, younger and more agile but none could match up to the mental determination of Mary Kom. Such success stories have draped in them multiple lessons about not giving up in the face of  adversity and when the odds are not in your favour. Failure is an essential part of your journey towards success. Mary’s career has its own share of defeats, but  no one has been strong enough to set her back and move her away from her goal.  Each failure was a learning opportunity, an opportunity to work on the skill sets and fill in the gaps. An aspirant’s journey is not much different. Failures are an inevitable reality; a stride towards success. They make you stronger and better equipped to face the upcoming challenges.

Do you find yourself cribbing about the lack of resources at your disposal? Or do you  hear yourself making statements such as ‘if I had more money’, ‘if I had more time’, ‘if I had a better guidance’? If yes, then there are two things I want to point out to you—first, you are not alone and second, you are not helping yourself by thinking on these lines. The human mind is an amazing creation. It has been proven time and again that the capacity of a human mind is far beyond our imagination. When cornered  with an unwanted and unwelcoming situation, your mind comes out with solutions that you would have never imagined. Limitations drive resourcefulness in us. When we have more at our disposal, we follow existing patterns that have been built into our environment. We have less of an incentive to look beyond what is immediately accessible and how it is presented. But when we have less, this is not the case. If you want to keep moving forward, you have to think out of the box. You are pushed to be creative, and that sparks inspiration in your mind, making you do things that drive you towards excellence and success. Failure has a tendency to simplify and then eliminate. Sometimes, a failure is what you require to keep your mind in line with your goal. So the next time you feel that your opponent has more resources at his disposal, do remember that it is the  utilisation of these resources that matters and not the presence of these resources.

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