"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
-Winston Churchill
I saw this on a poster on my sister's campus last year. It resonated with me for two reasons. One being that I've felt like a failure on more than one occasion and two because I've come to realize that without enthusiasm everything will feel like a fail even when it's a minor success. Most of the time, it's how you look at it, how you perceive it.
Looking at my life growing up, I had quite a few setbacks. My dream of becoming a Blue Angel failed. My first crush didn't even like me. My hearing loss made it extremely difficult to learn the "traditional" way. So called friends turned their backs on me again and again. Being a victim to bullying became a way of life. I could go on. All of those things either made me stronger or changed my life for the better. I'm not saying I love the fact that I was bullied or that my first crush didn't see me as a human being. However, I am saying that because I dealt with failure all along the way, I did my best to find a happy place. In my case, it was writing and reading. I never felt failure when doing either one of those activities. Sure there were times I had writer's block or the character in the book didn't see the gun soon enough, but I always had them to turn to when life got bad.
Being enthusiastic is hard, believe me, especially when you really don't feel like it. For instance, I hate being in front of people for any reason. In order for me to put a real smile on my face when playing in front of an audience or giving a speech, I have to really put my focus on what I'm doing, not the audience. In speech class, I loved it when we were given the freedom to give a speech on a topic we choose. I would make it a mission to talk about something I cared about i.e. animal extinction and cooking my favorite meal, Lasagna Rolls. Writing the speech was definitely more fun than giving it but I learned to put enthusiasm into it and by the time I was in the middle of it, I felt more relaxed.
What can you do the next time you encounter failure?
