Be honest. At some point in your life, you had one of those "million dollar ideas", didn't you? Maybe you thought of some amazing product, but then convinced yourself that it would never actually sell. Maybe you thought of some cool new app, but talked yourself out of it because you didn't know how to develop it or market it once it was ready. I see this happen to people all of the time. They have some great idea, but then their brain starts talking themselves out of it. We begin to doubt ourselves, doubt our skills, or doubt our ability to make it happen. Whatever the basis for the doubt, we kill our own dreams. For some, it is simply the fear of failure that causes us to crush our own dreams and not failure itself.
When doubt causes us to abandon our dreams, we will never know what could have been. It is entirely possible that you could have developed that product. It is entirely possible that the app you wanted to design would have been phenomenal, but doubt leaves those dreams in the shadows. With doubt, you will never know what would have been possible and you don't learn anything from doubt.
Failure, on the other hand, is a teacher (albeit a mean one, sometimes, but a teacher nonetheless!) As it has been said, failure is only truly failure when you give up. Through failure and mistakes, we learn what parts of the process work and which parts need to be changed or modified. It gives us the chance to try again. When we learn from our mistakes we get better, stronger, more focused on the outcome we are trying to achieve.
Taking risks and pursuing huge dreams can be intimidating, especially when it necessitates navigating in to uncharted waters, but remember the words of Andre Gide who said “One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.” When it comes to taking a chance on a dream remember that, in the end, we either succeed or we learn what doesn’t work and we try again.
Living a life of Up or Getting Up (But Never Down) doesn’t mean there won’t be failure. Failure is just a chance to get up again, but this time stronger and smarter. Dream big and don’t let doubt get in your way!
Up or Getting Up Actions To Take:
- Have a “dream” session where you simply write down anything and everything that you would like to accomplish or achieve. Then write down one step, one action, that you could do now that would get you closer to achieving that dream.
- The next time doubt causes you to back away from one of your goals or dreams, instead of focusing on why it won’t work, try focusing on all the benefits achieved from making it work. Focus on the reasons, or “why”, you want it to work.