You said it was the end. Bankruptcy. Foreclosure. Pregnant. An STD. Divorced. Fired. Homeless. Jail. Cancer.

Maybe you’re single and can’t remember the last date. You may be a new small business owner that’s barely scraping by. Or perhaps you quit your job, launched a dream working for yourself and the projects are just not taking off as you imagined they would.

It could be that you moved to a new city with hopes of finding joy and making friends but you come home feeling lonely every night. Or you woke up to 100 pounds overweight and feel overwhelmed by the work it’s going to take to lose it all.

When life doesn’t lay out the way we planned it, it’s easy to surrender to failure with negative thinking. Here are a few folks who walked through failure and have come out with a positive message for you.

“The next day after I got fired, literally the next day, I started a new company. Life is too short to spend your time avoiding failure.” MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” OPRAH WINFREY

“I would say the advice I would give myself, or any young person, would be, ‘Keep your head up in failure, and your head down in success.'” JERRY SEINFELD (He forgot all his jokes on his first night of stand-up)

 “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” TRUMAN CAPOTE (writer & actor known for Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” STEVE JOBS

 “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” BILL GATES

“I have missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the gam winning shot, and I have missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” MICHAEL JORDAN

“You’ve got to get a real job and get a real career, and you’ve got to go to work. And, you’ve got to live. And, you’ve got to succeed and fail, and suffer, a little bit, or see suffering, heartache and heartbreak and all that before you really have anything to write.” JOHN GRISHAM

 “You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are.” JOHN LENNON

“The higher up you go, the more mistakes you’re allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered your style.” FRED ASTAIRE

“It’s the way of all ancient stories. The young man must go ‘down’ in order to find the right path for going ‘up.’” SIDNEY POITIER

“One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress.” HENRY FORD

 “Most of us are acquainted with losing. Very few of us ever win.” CHARLES SCHULTZ

 “I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.” JACK LONDON

“I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.” TOM LANDRY

 “To bear up under loss — to fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief — to be victor over anger — to smile when tears are close — to resist evil men and base instincts — to hate hate and to love love — to go on when it would seem good to die — to seek ever after the glory and the dream — to look up with unquenchable faith in something evermore about to be — that is what any man can do, and so be great.” ZANE GREY (author best known for making the ‘Western’ genre popular)

 One lasting thought…

“At some point, you are bound to stumble. If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher and higher, the law of averages predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. Now, when you’re down there in the hole, it looks like failure. When that moment comes, it’s okay to feel bad for a little while. Give yourself time to mourn what you think you may have lost. But then, here’s the key: Learn from every mistake, because every experience, particularly your mistakes, are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are.” Oprah Winfrey

You thought it was the end, but it’s only the beginning.

Save this post so that the next time negative thinking comes knocking at the door of your failure, you can declare all the great successes that are about to come from this ‘defeat’.