Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
Dale Carnegie

The reason that most people don’t succeed is that they give up after having a failure. They think that to fail means exactly that—to fail—when actually a failure is not a failure until it’s been accepted as such. You only fail when you quit, when you stop trying and can’t be bothered to try again.

Actually, failure is one of the best things that can happen to you—as long as you look at it in the right way. If you take failure to mean that you really have failed, then that is what it is—or becomes. But if you just take failure as a normal part of life, as a thing to go through before you achieve something worthwhile, then it no longer is failure. It just becomes a learning experience.

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When we feel discouraged, it’s usual to try to find some external source which will give encouragement. We think that we can find a way to increase our motivation by finding someone who can give us a pep talk, or by reading a motivating book or a piece of motivational writing—much like this one.

It’s true that these things, especially people with a bright outlook on life, can give us encouragement and motivation. People with a positive outlook can do wonders for our own mental outlook. But sometimes that doesn’t work. No matter how much we’re around positive people, the great outlook just doesn’t seem to rub off.

So what do we do when we have no motivation and can’t be bothered? What do we do when we want to feel positive but can’t help feeling negative? Being in a positive situation, with positive people can help us to be encouraged, but we need something more.

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A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.
David Brinkley

It’s a common conception that successful people have had it easy. Successful people, or so we often think, have had opportunity handed to them on a plate, and all they had to do was pick it up and success was theirs. Then when we look around at our own lives and find that the same opportunities are lacking, we begin to believe that success is impossible, or so difficult that it would take years of work to achieve.

It’s only when we look at the facts of the lives of many successful people that we see the opposite is true. Many successful people did not have easy lives, or certainly no easier than many other people. And many times we find that successful people had far from easy lives.

So what made the difference?

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One kind word can warm three winter months
Japanese proverb

It’s a simple thing to do, and it’s a simple thing to forget to do. But the consequences of saying a kind word can be much greater than we ever realize. A simple thing such as complimenting someone on a job well done or giving encouragement when needed can stay with the person for months… and sometimes a lifetime.

That kind word could be just what was needed at that moment to stop a person from giving up their goals. It might be just what was needed to stop a person from becoming despondent. It might be just what was needed to make a person realize that they are noticed, are a human being, and not just a cog in a machine. Small kind words are the things which add light to life.

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Circumstances are beyond human control,
but our conduct is in our own power
Benjamin Disraeli

When something happens to knock us back, the most natural thing is to blame the circumstances. If only such-a-thing hadn’t happened… If only things had been better at that time… If only… Everyone has these moments of blaming circumstances for not trying to achieve something. The reason is that it’s easier to blame the circumstances than blame ourselves. When we blame the circumstances we can absolve ourselves from taking personal responsibility.

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