I heard this inspiring story a few years ago, and it is very meaningful to me, on my views why some people are really successful while some do not. It is a mythical fantasy story of two stones who each have a different fate. Here it goes…
In a certain part of China, there is a majestic temple where thousands from all over the world come to worship. The entire temple was made with stone, all from the same mountain. The pillars, the Buddha statue, the roof are all finely crafted with stone.
One day, one of the stone slabs which made up the stairs leading to the temple was talking to the stone which is crafted into the Buddha. It exclaimed “Life is so unfair! We all came from the same mountain and why am I always get stepped on by thousands of people and you are placed high up and being worshipped by them?” Other stone slabs, also started ranting their anger and their dissatisfaction to the stone Buddha.
Finally, the stone Buddha spoke. “Can you see the difference between us? You are rectangular stone slabs that only need to endure 6 slices of the blades that made you today… I myself have to take thousands slices, hundreds of chippings and months of grinding to make me today!”
A short but truly meaningful story right? Success mostly happen after countless of failures and obstacles. People who are afraid of failure and unwilling to move out of their comfort zones are the many stone slabs in the temple, will see success or wealth befall on them. High achievers fail more than any other people. But they do not give up, they accept that failure is part of the process to achieve success, and they keep trying. Here are two points for you to think about:
Always plan to fail. Expect failure 99% all the time. Think about what you will do after each failure. If you do not plan or set your mindset right, you will be constantly disappointed. Many people expect themselves to succeed on the first try and they felt terribly painful and gave up when their first try turned out to be bad. If you are expecting failure all the time, you will be pleasantly surprised and happy when success finally happen! If you watch the interviews of millionares and successful people, you will hear them say they didn’t expect this kind of success or result when they started. They plan to fail and they worked out plans to try again. They fine tune their plans and avoid making the same mistakes until they get it right. Truly, it is the formula for success!
Having a plan is not good enough. You must take action! Many people had great plans and said their plans were perfect and bound to succeed, but truly the fact was that the “perfect plan” was not executed because they feared failure. You can read all the books to success and agreeing to all ideas, understanding all methodologies to success. But if you did not try them out and see for yourself, you are in fact yet to fully understand it. “To know and not to do, is not yet to know.” You don’t have to have great success plans for a start, try something simple and achievable, apply the techniques and skills. Taste how success is like, and before you know it, you wanted more of it again. Being successful once can mean being successful again. You will be motivated and truly believe that all you had learnt are indeed true!
Overcome your fear of failure can bring you to great heights. Understanding that countless of failures are not true failures, but just feedback. Take that feedback and turn it to lesson learnt and try again, you are on the right track to success! There are million of ways to overcome failure, I strongly recommend these two wonderful books, Why People Fail: The 16 Obstacles to Success and How You Can Overcome Them
You might be interested in these too:
- Why We Fail: The 101 Best Ways to Overcome Failure and Achieve Success
- Conquering the Fear of Failure
- Celebrating Failure: The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big
- The Achilles Syndrome: Overcoming the Secret Fear of Failure
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Richmond
Founder – Dream Turners
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