As I have said before, achievement doesn’t happen without effort and failure along the way. There are certain abilities that separate achievers from average people. John Maxwell says there are “Seven abilities of achievers that enable them to fail, not take it personally, and keep them moving forward.” There are:
- Achievers Reject Rejection – Achievers don’t take rejection personally. They don’t consider themselves a failure just because something didn’t work out right. They don’t let it affect their self-worth. They might just say “that didn’t work out like I thought it would,” or “I made a mistake,” and then they move on. That’s why it’s so important to keep our thinking on the right track. We have to take responsibility for our actions but don’t take failure personally.
- Achievers See Failures As Isolated Incidents – Achievers see their failures as a momentary event, a stepping stone to success. They just don’t let a single event stop them from accomplishing what they set out to accomplish.
- Achievers Keep Expectations Realistic – The bigger your dreams of achievement are, the greater your management of attitude for overcoming obstacles and persevering needs to be. Achievement takes time, effort, and ability and there will be numerous challenges but if you break it down into reasonable daily expectations, you won’t get as discouraged when things don’t go like you thought they would.
- Achievers Focus on Strengths – Achievers keep from personalizing failure by focusing on their strengths. Achievers always focus on what they can do, not on what they can’t. Focus on your successes.
- Achievers Vary Approaches to Achievement – Achievers are willing to adjust and vary their approaches to challenges and obstacles. This might include a whole new method or system to get the goal accomplished.
- Achievers See Failure As Temporary – Achievers know that failure is temporary if we don’t dwell on it and personalize it. There is a saying, “This too shall pass.” For me it simply means that no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, it will change. Never get too confident about your successes, never get too down about your failures.
- Achievers Bounce Back – Every achiever has the common trait of being able to bounce back after a mistake, error, or failure. Achievers keep moving down the path to success no matter what happens. The reason they can do that is they realize that failure does not make them failures. Don’t take mistakes personally. Just keep bouncing back.
Psychologist Simone Caruthers says, ” Life is a series of outcomes, Sometimes the outcome is what you want. Great. Figure out what you did right. Sometimes the outcome is what you don’t want. Great. Figure out what you did so you won’t do it again.”
We don’t have to have any special talents too achieve greatness. We just have to refuse to let failure get the better of us.
Have an awesome day.
