Success Quote - Urgent! Are You Focussed on Success or Failure!

"It's not what you are that holds you back. It's what you think you're not."
Denis Waitley

This success quote from Denis Waitley is one of the key reasons why so many people fail to achieve their full potential.

When you think about yourself, your capabilities, your ability to take the next step in your life, your resourcefulness in dealing with the daily challenges of life, what do you think about?

When you look back over times when you've had to take the lead or make decisions do you congratulate yourself on a job well done or do you just see the mistakes you made? Even worse, do you spend hours beating yourself up for those mistakes?

One of the worst things that people do to themselves is to look at a failure to achieve something and translate that into "I am a failure". You can end up repeating this statement over and over again until it becomes your reality.

This is most likely to happen when you are trying to make a major change in your life. Inevitably you are going to have to step outside of your comfort zone and try something new. Once you are outside your comfort zone you are more likely to react negatively to problems… The inevitable result is that you end dragged back into your comfort zone watching your plans for the future vanish over the horizon.

Take a balanced view

You must realise that the truth is everyone makes mistakes – even the smartest leaders and gurus. The difference in people's results is how they deal with mistakes and past events and how they explain their experiences to themselves.

If something did not turn out as you hoped it would, it is vitally important that you must tell yourself that's o.k. You've done nothing wrong, nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, if you've ventured out of your comfort zone you should be proud of yourself for taking that step.

Take a balanced view of the events. There's almost certainly something that you did well. Analyze what happened – what can you learn from the experience? What can you do better next time, what can you avoid doing wrong? If things went very wrong, maybe you should try a different approach.

Finally remind yourself you may have failed this time round, but that doesn't mean you are a failure!

Two tools that can help you focus on success

There are two simple things that you can do to help you shift your focus from failure to success.

First set aside a little time to yourself. Think about all the things you have done recently. Write down a list of all the things that you have done well. Keep going – you should write down at least 100 things. They don't have to be major achievements, they could be simple things that caused someone to express appreciation. Now read through the list – you're better than you imagined aren't you!

Start a success diary. Every time you succeed keep a note of it, write a couple of sentences that outline what you did well. You'll soon build up a record of success and achievement. You'll be able to read through it when you've had a particularly bad time.

Denis Waitley's success quote reminds us that we are so often guilty of spending too much time dwelling on our failures. You need to look at your own life and ask yourself is this a limiting factor for me? If it is you can use some simple tools to help you shift your focus from failure to success.

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