Tag Archives: failure

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Failure Is Why You Will Succeed

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

be humble in your success, stay positive in your failures, Jerry Seinfeld quote, Jerry Seinfeld on failure, trishakeehn.com

“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

Michael Jordan, basketball pro quote, failure is why you will succeed“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

Fred Astaire quote, Fred Astaire on failure, failure is your style, fail often

“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

Tom Landry quote, Tom Landry on failure, constructive comes from every defeat, football coach quote“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’.

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What’s Your Success Based On

thomas edison quote, success, close to success, failuresAre the goals you’ve set about performance and validation or your personal progress to be a better version of yourself?
 
When you set up a life focused on impressing others, you’ll be tempted to determine your self-worth based on the attention. Eventually, you may find yourself frustrated by the fleeting, fickle feelings and label your life a failure. You cannot achieve success based on a forced ability to impress.
 
Focus on pursuing challenges that develop character and opportunities to learn and expand your expertise. Try something new. In the last year, I’ve taken classes in swing dance, hip hop dance and paddle boarding. I recently started studying ‘doodling’ (with purpose, instead of boredom). Chances are, you won’t see me on Dancing with the Stars or art on display in the Smithsonian. I do these things to stretch and grow God’s craftsmanship in me.
 
It’s okay to make mistakes. Open doors to make many more of them. Believe you have what it takes. Remind yourself that each stumble and fall is still another step forward from where you were.
So what does success look like for you? Don’t give up on yourself just because the world gives up on you. You’re so close… stand up and try again.
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Accept Failure

Just as long as you try

try, failure, trishakeehn.com, michael jordan, quote

I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.

– Michael Jordan

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Do That Thing

Doubt Kills more dreams than failure ever will.

do that thing, dreams, doubt, failure, trishakeehn.comDo that thing you think you cannot do. If you take the chance and it doesn’t work out, what’s the worst that can happen? That you’d have to try something else?

Falling will probably hurt a little. But, going against gravity and rising when you want to stay down is what produces growth. Resistance is meant to be uncomfortable. Let go of protecting yourself from trying. Workout those possibilities. Exercise the opportunities.

Where there’s no risk, there’s no reward.

Let me be more black and white…

doubt, dreams, failure, do it, trishakeehn.com

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He is Faithful

“He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:24

Gathered around tables of sweets, surrounded by a sea of success, my mind was stuck swirling over a speechless performance just hours before; which sounds outstanding until I mention it was me, the deliverer, who was left on that stage speechless. At the conclusion of a 3-day conference, all I could think about was my failure to deliver what I was sure God had anointed me with.

He is faithful, trishakeehn.comWhat do you do when you know you are equipped and have more than enough to get the job done but you show up empty handed? The mercy here is that I was in front of an audience overflowing with grace when it happened.

Now sitting in a pool of tears at the reminder of my humiliation, I wondered why He hadn’t shown up.

I trusted Him with the stage and He gave me silence.

Sitting in my room now at the midnight hour, with a flight scheduled to leave late the next day, I continued to question, where are you, God?

Leaving room for an interruption (in other words, the divine appointment to make new friends), I had purposefully paid more for an afternoon ticket because I expected God to intervene with some last minute adventure.

At this point, you’re probably wondering, why in the world would you rely on the mystery of some random encounter? Welcome to my life. God has been doing it for years. So at this point, I plan on them.

It’s late. My emotions are tossing every bit of faith out the window at this hour. The control freak in me is consuming every thought.

“Hello? I changed my mind. I want to change my departure time tomorrow and leave as soon as possible. Change fee? That’s fine. Please book it.”

Tossing and turning through the night, I woke up with the same questions, Lord, I trusted you. Why didn’t you come through?

Though I was tempted to roll over in scenarios the moon lit up the darkness again, God gripped my soul with power in His Word, He who calls you is faithful. He did it before and He’ll do it again.

Stinging tears became a soothing shower of affection streaming over my face.

The healing in God’s spirit comforted mine and captivated the focus from my frustration to His faithfulness.

So by this time, I’m rolling a suitcase into the lobby in search of someone to share a lift with me. In this moment, two women walked out the doors looking to split the cab fare as well.

Juggling a terrible tasting, lukewarm cup of coffee during our trip to the airport, my attention was caught up in these writer’s experiences about being signed to agents, with book deals under their belt. My questions weren’t keeping up with the curiosity and racing excitement, as our cab driver maneuvered up to the curb and stopped his meter.failure, He prevails, trishakeehn.com

And at this point in the weekend journey, I had concluded that even when we fail, He still prevails.

He is surely… still… faithful.

But you didn’t think God was done at this juncture in the story, did you? I’m not home just yet.

Handling a better tasting cup of coffee this time as I found my seat on the plane, I began to jot down in my journal all kinds of aftermath thoughts in the wake of enlightenment from my two new writer friends. Passengers began to make their way down the aisle as my attention faded in and out of a mashup of conversations until my ears caught the voice behind me say she was heading home to Nashville from a conference.

Hey! That’s my town. This is my chance!

Turning around I introduced myself and asked if she would like to get coffee sometime to debrief over the whirlwind of workshops.

My heart was quick to skip over the beat of humiliation as she introduced herself as one of the speakers on staff with the conference ministry. She travels the country delivering messages at gatherings like this she said. My eagerness pounced at the opportunity to learn from her experience.

stories, His faithfulness, trishakeehn.com, mistakesWalking through the threshold of home, sweet home, a smile stretched across my face at the faithfulness of God. My bags were stuffed with names of new friends, notebooks spilling out with wisdom, yet He was able to fit a few more surprises in there.

Looking back I have concluded maybe I didn’t fail at all. The story He wants us to tell is the one we’re living, with our mistakes covered in His faithfulness. Yes, that is the only one worth sharing.

He is faithful. He is faithful.

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34 lessons I’ve learned over the years

marking my 34th birthday

In 34 years, here’s what I’ve learned…

  1. Love is the answer; being right rarely is.
  2. We spend way too much time in the work of crafting ourselves, and far too little time just being ourselves.
  3. The greatest adventures come from wrong turns, so don’t let fear stop you.
  4. Discipline is important to achieving dreams. Grace is even more important.
  5. You can start over whenever you decide to.
  6. Your childhood gives you character but it doesn’t control who you become.
  7. Worrying about something that might happen is wasted energy.
  8. If you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people.
  9. Success is not defined by status, money, education, career or another person but by the peace in your heart.
  10. Money doesn’t give you character. Failure does.
  11. When someone shows their true colors, don’t try to repaint them.
  12. Anger isn’t nearly as impressive as patience. Nor is it as effective.
  13. Listen more and talk less.
  14. Boyfriends and husbands are lovely. Close girlfriends are gold.
  15. You have to go home with your heart, so love freely but keep the key.love, answer, trishakeehn.com, life lessons, 30's lessons, love is the answer,
  16. Vulnerability is the strength that separates the strong from the weak.
  17. Everyone has a story. Make time for the adventure.
  18. The more mistakes you make the more you learn. Take risks.
  19. Dimming your light to make others feel more comfortable doesn’t serve you. Or them.
  20. Go neither right nor left at the fork. Go right up the middle. Choose the narrow path. Take someone with you.
  21. After thinking I would never fall in love again, I did.
  22. No one has it all together. Forgive people. Even your exes. They’re just winging it, too.
  23. There’s not just one person for you. Love takes a commitment. If you’re both willing, you can make a relationship work. Soul mates are made over time.
  24. Another person will never complete you. Only you can do that.
  25. If you’re not happy with yourself, you’ll never be happy in a relationship.
  26. No amount of designer handbags or shoes is going to make you happy in the long run. The same goes for chocolate chip cookies.
  27. The way people treat you is probably more about them, not you.
  28. Boundaries are about self-preservation, not about alienation.
  29. Black and white is an illusion. Life is gray.
  30. Help out someone less fortunate for the joy of doing it. Then keep it to yourself.
  31. Small minds focus on problems. Big thinkers focus on solutions.
  32. Working hard doesn’t mean working smart.
  33. Failure only happens to quitters.
  34. Believe everyone has good intentions… even God.


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No Fear of Failure

When will we ever learn that there are no hopeless situations, only people who have grown hopeless about them? What appears as an unsolvable problem to us is actually a rather exhilarating challenge. People who inspire others are those who see invisible bridges at the end of dead-end streets. Whether your circumstance is a relationship or a job, be inspired to continue hoping and persevere!

“The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” -Proverbs 28:1

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” – Romans 5:3-4