Should you ignore your failures?

Following from my last post regarding the impact of self-help on people with low self esteem I thought I would discuss the impact of negativity in our lives. There is a lot of information out there regarding how to improve your life and to think positive thoughts to improve your life. Hence the "need" for researchers to attempt to disprove the industry as of any real help.

Putting that study aside

I will not discuss the study once more as it has already been done, what I will do today is to look at the role of negativity in your life and how you can best use it to improve your life. As a general rule we are told to always have positive thoughts as, when you are positive you will attract good and positive things into your life.

And as much as that is true

I know it and you know it that there are always negative things happening in the World every day and sometimes, unfortunately, these happen to us at a personal level as well. In those times it is very difficult to stay positive. So should we ignore it completely and only focus on the positive aspects of your life or should we acknowledge them for what they are?

Failure is important

Well, Human Behavioural Specialist, Dr John F Demartini, reckons that "negative feedback is equally important to positive feedback in helping you achieve success in all areas of your life". In other words we need both positive and negatives to actually grow as while one supports us the other one actually challenges us.

"Learn from your mistakes"

It is how you deal with negativity that is the important part of the equation. If you look at the lives of most multi-millionaires in the World, the vast majority of them were bankrupt at one point or another of their lives. All the World Record holder athletes had losing races or competitions. Tiger Woods doesn't win every single open he plays in and even the greatest tennis player of all time, Roger Federer, went through a bad patch last year that made him lose the number one spot on the ATP tour.

You only fail when you fail to learn

What all these people have in common is that they accepted the failures they had, analysed them to understand where they went wrong, learned a different way to do it (or avoided the wrong way), and eventually succeeded again. You should do the same. If you have failed at something, whatever that was, look at your role in it. Admit your mistakes. Realise what should you have done differently and then apply those learnings to your next endeavour.

By learning from your mistakes, you grow as a person

In order for you to grow as a person and become someone of self-mastery, you must embrace both sides of the coin. As Demartini says "We must embrace the vision we hold, knowing there will be people who like and people who dislike that vision. In life you will have challenges. That is what will make you stronger".

Next time you receive negative feedback or fail, please take that on board, learn from it and use it to make yourself and stronger, healthier and more focussed individual.

Speak to you very soon,

Paulo