There's no such thing as failure
Tuesday 26 November 2024
Bruce Lee famously said: “If you say something’s impossible, you make it impossible”. Then there’s an old Latin quote: “Vincit qui se vincit”, which translates as “He conquers who conquers himself”. In other words, your greatest enemy in your life’s progress can be you.
How about considering that there’s no such thing as failure? Of course, there are some things impossible to achieve. For example, if you decided to stand on the tracks and try to take on an express train hurtling straight towards you, it’s obvious who’s going to win. Which invokes another sensible saying: “Pick your battles”. But it’s how you assess a battle that marks out your ambitions. The express train produces an obvious decision from anybody sensible. But what about someone who’s bigger or more skillful than you? Can you see that it would be possible at some time in the future for you to overcome them? Sometimes, of course, that assessment may be out of your hands, for example in an unexpected street confrontation. Here, the choice might be fight or flight, and the sensible choice is always to run away from it if you can. If there’s no time to run, that would test what you were capable of, and you might surprise yourself. But in the world of fair play, whether in the Dojo or outside, only you can pick your battles, set your goals. How much do you want to achieve? What’s possible, even if it seems far distant? Now you’re up against yourself.
A good mindset is to eliminate the word ‘failure’ from your vocabulary. Try replacing it with ‘obstacles’ or ‘hurdles’ or, best of all, ‘milestones’. Because if your goals are ambitious, there will be obstacles to challenge you. When you fall at a hurdle, that isn’t failure – it’s a necessary milestone on your road to success. Cheer when you ‘fail’. Learn from the experience and continue your journey. Celebrate and notch-up each fall-down. Look forward to the next milestone.
The belt system epitomises the milestone concept. But also remember, you can create your own mini-milestones in between belts. Pace yourself, by picking out the smallest things every day which you could improve over yesterday. They all stack up, don’t hurt too much if you trip over them sometimes, and exponentially increase your self-confidence.