Welcome to the next lesson.
This one is called “No Failure.”
Nice title, I like it.
And this comes from a website, actually.
The website is LifeCoachesBlog.com and the title of the article is “There is No Failure,
Only Learning Experience.”
And this is one of my core beliefs, one of my central beliefs.
It’s a very powerful belief and I recommend that you decide to have this belief, also,
because this belief will give you so much power and strength in your life.
It’s a vital, core belief, a vital fundamental belief.
By having this belief you will learn faster and faster.
You will succeed more and more.
You will get everything you want in your life, just by believing this, this simple thing.
Let me read it and then I’ll talk more about it.
Here we go.
“There is no failure, only feed back.
We say that there is no such thing as success, failure, happiness or depression.
Not that people don’t feel these things, but that they’re labels that we tack on
to things afterwards.
“Your subjective experience of happiness is quite different from mine.
All these emotional states are subjective processes.
They’re not things; they are things that we do.
We don’t have happiness, we do happiness.
Happiness is not a thing like an apple is a thing.
Happiness is a process.
Failure is the same.
There is no such thing as failure until we label something as failure.
“For example, contrast two different boys, boy one and boy two.
They’re both learning how to ride their bicycles and they’re both fumbling about
and falling down.
Boy one says ‘I keep failing and failing at this again.
Maybe I can’t do this.
Maybe I’m just a failure.’
Say this enough and he starts feeling like a total failure and he’s not going to continue
very long.
“By two thinks differently.
He thinks “Hum, the last two times I fell down I was holding my handlebar with only
one hand.
Maybe there’s something to learn?
After all, there was also one time I almost did not fall.
So, hum, I must be able to do it eventually.
I just need to learn more.’
“Boy one just doesn’t get it because he treats his experience as failure and he doesn’t
get anything out of his experience.
Boy two develops his bicycle riding experience and skill because he doesn’t beat himself
up.
He doesn’t label himself as a failure; rather, he sees every experience as learning.
“Now imagine the opposite idea.
Imagine how terrible and crazy the opposite idea would be.
Imagine there is only failure and no learning experiences.
Sounds kind of stupid, doesn’t it?
Well it is stupid.
The opposite is much more powerful and true.
For if there is no failure, only learning experience, what would be different for you?
How would that change your life if you had that belief?
“For example, when a missile is launched it doesn’t go in a perfect straight line
to its target.
Along the way it bumps into problems that cause it to go off course.
But an accurate missile takes these experiences as feedback, as learning experiences.
And it corrects its course along the way until it finally hits its target.
“You might be facing the same situation in different areas of your life.
Some things are cruising along to their target very smoothly, while others are in the process
of course correcting.
If there was no failure in your life, only learning experience, how would your life be
different emotionally, mentally, socially, physically and spiritually?”
Okay, interesting little article and very powerful and very simple, really.
But this simple idea has so much power, if you will adopt this idea, if you will have
this idea as your own and make it stronger and stronger and stronger so that every time
in your life, every experience, is only a learning experience.
There is no failure, no failure, only results, only learning experiences, only feedback.
So if you had with trouble with English in the past you didn’t fail and you’re not
a failure, you learned something.
What did you learn?
Maybe you learned that grammar and translation are not effective learning methods.
That’s an important lesson to learn.
A lot of people never understand that.
So, wow, that’s a powerful thing that you learned.
Maybe you have learned, since then, that you can improve your English if you use the correct
methods.
That’s an important lesson to learn.
Maybe you learned that schools are not effective and so maybe you can try something different
like learning independently, which is what you’re doing right now.
The point is you don’t label yourself as a failure.
You don’t say “I failed.”
You didn’t fail.
You learned something from those experiences.
Or you can learn something if you will think differently.
Every experience in your life can be seen this way.
If you get fired from your job, well, you have some choices.
You can decide that you’re a failure.
“I’m a failure in my career.
Something’s wrong with me.”
That’s one meaning you can give it.
You can decide there’s a failure.
“I have failed.”
Or you can decide there is no failure there’s only learning and you can think “What have
I learned?
What have I learned?
What did I learn from my job?
What have I learned from being fired?”
And I went through this experience myself in my life and being fired was a great learning
experience, fantastic.
I learned a lot of great things.
I learned things about myself.
I realized that, for me, the students were more important than a school or a boss and
I knew that would always be true.
I learned that I like to be independent and make my own choices.
I learned that I needed to be my own boss; that I needed to be independent.
I learned that I had a great teaching system that students loved, but the status quo, the
traditional teachers and administrators did not like.
I learned a lot of lessons from that experience.
I don’t think it was a failure I think it was a huge success, in fact.
It was a great learning experience.
In fact, when I look back in my life it’s usually the tough times, the difficult times
that were the best learning experiences that changed my life the most and helped me grow
the most, not the easy times.
And this is true for most people.
Most people learn the most when times are tough.
It’s a great opportunity, but only if you see it as a learning experience, only if you
have this belief.
If you decide “I’m a failure, I failed, I failed,” you learn nothing.
You just get sad and depressed and weak.
There is no failure, there’s only learning.
Any time you have a tough situation ask the same question, “What have I learned?
What can I learn?
What can I learn from this?
What can I learn from this?”
No failure.
You will never fail at English, you’ll just learn.
You’ll learn which methods are best and which methods don’t work.
You’ll learn what you like and what you don’t like.
You’ll never fail.
Okay.
Well I hope you will think very deeply and seriously about this topic.
It’s a very important topic.
It’s so simple, but this small change can totally change your life.
Never again use the word failure or fail, especially for yourself, never.
Speak only about learning.
Speak only about results.
Speak only about feedback.
Never use the word failure for yourself.
All right, well that is the end of this lesson.
I will see you next time, bye-bye.