Showing posts with label mistakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mistakes. Show all posts

Don't Punish Yourself When You Make Mistakes. Notice What You've Chosen And Simply Choose Again

Sometimes I Wish I Knew Better

Think about a recent mistake and consider how things could have turned out differently for you. Whilst hindsight is a wonderful faculty, it can often make us feel guilt and remorseful for our actions. I want to reassure you that every choice we make is made with the awareness and level of consciousness available to us at the time. However, this does not excuse us from repeating the same mistakes. We are the product of our thinking and until we expand our consciousness, we are bound to repeat our mistakes. That's where hindsight works to our advantage. With a new level of awareness, we can look forward to the future knowing we are not constrained by our mistakes but learn to make better decisions based on the past.

Many people make mistakes they regret. How about you? Are you still holding on to regret from the past or have you made peace with them? I realise it is difficult to let go of the past. But, we can take comfort knowing we did our best at the time and hopefully we won't repeat the same mistakes. This is why we mustn't punish ourselves but notice what we've chosen and simply choose again; this time more wisely. This is the advice echoed by Dr. Alex Lickerman who writes in The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self: "But we needn't waste time in recriminations or in wishing we could go back in time to change what happened. We can turn that hurt or regret into a catalyst for personal growth, into motivation for examining the reasons we made the choice in the first place and for asking ourselves how we might change to avoid making the same mistake again." I've made countless mistakes in my 20s about my health and career choices. Sometimes I wish I knew better, however I didn't have the awareness as I do now and was choosing to the best of my ability. In a recent conversation with a coaching client, she complimented me on my wisdom to help her overcome her challenges. As I considered the compliment, it reminded me of the countless mistakes I made over the years. In fact, gaining wisdom has little to do with the books I read, the courses attended or the people I surround myself with. Whilst they are important, it was the numerous mistakes I made, and the lessons gained that cultivated good judgement.

It Is About Finding Clarity

Can you reflect on earlier mistakes that contributed to your personal growth? Sometimes we experience growth while other times we are destined to repeat the same mistakes until we receive a wake-up call. Nothing teaches us valuable lessons other than life's experience. No matter how often you feel obligated to help a loved one through a crisis, ultimately they must learn the lessons on their own. My experience as a coach and speaker shows that people are not ready to receive advice unless they ask or pay for it. I mention this because we ought to refrain from giving advice on how others should live their life or overcome their problems. In fact, the best thing we can do is listen to their problems with an open mind and help them gain clarity on the situation. If you've ever worked with a coach or mentor, you will notice they ask many questions and seldom give advice. Rather, they help you gain clarity on your issues and lead you towards self-enquiry, so you are better equipped to find the answers yourself.

Considering this, think back to an earlier time when you faced a difficult challenge and consulted other people. Perhaps you received conflicting advice at the time? In those instances, did you find your own solution or rely on the advice given? Similarly, if you followed the advice, did it work out in your favour? If you arrived at the solution yourself, were you more empowered as a result? It is my experience, the answers to our most pressing problems are always contained within us, yet we don't have enough clarity to recognise it or put it into action. We get stuck on life being a certain way and if it doesn't eventuate as we expect, we get angry and disillusioned. What we ought to do is keep searching for answers and work with our intuition to make sense of the situation. It is a matter of consulting the guidance we receive and interpreting it through logic. In light of this, return to the recent mistake I asked you about at the beginning of the article. Contemplate the following questions: What do I need to learn about this situation? What is this experience calling me to understand about myself or life? Where is the growth contained within this experience? Assuredly, when we pose empowering questions, we align ourselves with the right solutions instead of feeling disempowered. Punishing yourself when you make mistakes does not serve you other than to reinforce a despairing mindset. We must notice what we've chosen then ask empowering questions, so we are destined not to repeat those mistakes.


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Doing Nothing, And Ultimately Doing Something


This article is about mistakes, and how to genuinely correct them, primarily. Although this article is about mistakes, it is about learning and creativity also. So, think about this fact. Sometimes the best thing to do with a mistake is to do nothing but observe and learn from it so that you can do better in the next action taken.

With that said, I would also like to imply this: Reality is best served when you learn how not to do things, so that the doing of them right is certain when you next attempt to take an action. Active understanding is the key to working with reality as a whole. Passive understanding is learning to work with reality by observation of how not to do things. This is what Thomas Edison was using when inventing the light bulb and synthetic rubber with his associates. A combination of active and passive understanding was used to pull off these feats, otherwise without this sort of understanding, Edison and his associates would have quit at the first try saying that infamous word: "Impossible."

"Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed." A quote from Francis Bacon
The point of that quote after the word "impossible" is that nature is successfully commanded by passive and active understanding as I describe it here. When you learn from mistakes, you "automatically" better yourself. I put the word automatic in quotes, because there is still a choice to be made. A choice to learn or not to learn. So, I say this: The ultimate laziness is abiding by the word impossible and genuinely quitting after a few tries at learning how not to do it, and you will never have a real chance to learn how to do it.

From Leonardo Da Vinci and his thought up or postulated flying machine to the Wright Brothers and their actual flying machine, it all comes down to learning how not to do it through history until you finally understand how to do it and then do it right. So, when I say in my title doing nothing and ultimately doing something, this is exactly what I mean: You must first understand fully how not to do something, and then do it with full understanding of what works within what did not work.

So, I would like to end with, as long as there is a concept of what can be done as it starts out as an idea, there is not any such thing as impossible if it starts out as a concept that can ultimately be carried out.


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How Do You View Your Mistakes or Failures?


Do you take them personally and conclude you are not as good as you thought you were? Do you beat yourself up and languish in pain and misery over them? Or even worse, do you use them as reasons to give up or change your goal or profession? Do you fear them so much that they end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecies? All of the above are common reactions to mistakes and/or failing that many people occasionally or regularly make.

As common as the above reactions are, they do not come naturally to us, but rather are learned in our environment. Very early on in life almost all of us begin to dislike making mistakes and failing. Thank goodness that we are not born that way, or it is likely that none of us ever would have learned to walk or talk. Can you imagine babies trying to walk and each time they fail berating themselves about what a screw-up they are? Or imagine if they attempt to talk and gobble-de-gook comes out and they conclude they are not good at talking and give up to focus their energy on drooling−which they are already pretty good at doing.

One of the key differences I have noticed in the higher performing people I work with is the way in which they view their mistakes and failures. First, they tend to be much more understanding of them in the sense that they know they are going to happen. Viewing mistakes and failures as inevitable turns them into part of the process of getting better versus the more common belief that they are a threat to their own value or competence.

Secondly, they have an understanding that if they want to get better they have to constantly be attempting things that are currently out of their reach. No one ever learned to ride a bicycle by staying on a tricycle. In other words, no progress is made without risks. They understand the more things they attempt, the more things they learn to do and the more skilled they will become.

The best of the best that I have worked with are able to completely distance their ego from their mistakes. Failure and mistakes are looked upon as necessary annoyances that will enable them to reach their goals faster. When people ask me how to reach their goal(s) faster, my standard reply is that it's simple, just learn to fail successfully faster and more often.

The great basketball coach John Wooden once told me that most people think the team that makes the fewest mistakes will win, but he has found the opposite to be true. When teams are not making mistakes, they are usually playing it safe and not striving for greatness.

Wouldn't it be great if everyone looked at their mistakes and failures simply as gifts of learning new ways to do things? The truth is, nothing is stopping any of us from doing just that. Like anything, with deliberate practice this will become a habit, and there's a high likelihood that if you adopt this attitude it will enhance your happiness and success.



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Failure Is an Alpha's Best Friend

We tend to avoid failure and making mistakes at all costs, even at the greatest cost of all, which is not attempting anything in the first place because we are afraid to fail. Why are we afraid to fail, though? Is it truly because we don't want to feel like failures, or is it because we don't want others to see us as failures? We value the opinions of others so much more than our own that we are willing to put off our dreams, our goals and our happiness because other people whose opinions are meaningless might see us as failures, laugh at us, talk about us behind our backs or say, "I told you so".

So it is time to redefine failure. There has been a lot of talk about redefining failure, embracing failure and failure being a necessary part of the journey. When I was growing up, failure was the idea that you didn't achieve your goal the first time you tried. You tried and you succeeded, or you tried and you failed.

Unfortunately, most people never achieve a goal the first time they begin working towards it and if they do, chances are that goal was an easy one and they weren't aiming high enough because they underestimated how much they are actually capable of.

Failure is an inevitable experience along the path of success. The greatest business owners, the greatest athletes, they all experienced an incredible amount of failure before success: Steve Jobs was fired from his own company, the company he started, before being hired back six years later and turning Apple into a billion-dollar company. Howard Schultz of Starbucks stepped down as CEO for the good of the company, but then later returned. Michael Jordan once said, "I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed".

If failure is inevitable, then how can it be avoided? Of course, we want to foresee potential obstacles that will come up on the road to success, that is just good planning. I do this with my clients.

Failure is not about the twists and turns and forks in the road we encounter on the journey. For in every failure lies a lesson, a seed of wisdom that will be an integral part of the next leg of your journey.

Failure is never having started out of fear of what lies ahead. Out of the fear that we're not good enough, smart enough, resourceful enough. Failure is turning your back on what could be because it's far easier to embrace the safe and comfortable.

Chances are, however, that you had to encounter some kind of set back, road block or obstacle to get to where you are today, either personally or professionally.

When I was in the military, we had to do morning runs which I hated more than anything else. Our Sergeants used to tell us, "Don't stop running! You can slow down, but never stop running". There were times where I did not take this advice and it was near impossible to get back into the cadence of the run with my troops.

So the advice here is to keep moving forward, no matter how fast or slow your progress might be, it is still progress.

So embrace the imperfection of the journey and redefine failure.

Failure Exercise:

This is an exercise I do for myself as well as with clients. It is a great way to use the past as leverage to propel you forward into next-level success. It is very simple, but I believe there is an incredible power and catharsis in writing things down and looking at them as opposed to just trying to keep them all straight in your mind.

Think about all the times in your life that were extremely hard and that you wondered if you would ever get through them. Write them all down. Then write down one good thing that came out of all these. Maybe it was a lesson, maybe it was a new job, maybe it was a new relationship. Whatever it is write it down. Keep this list somewhere you can look at it and pull it out whenever you start to doubt yourself. Remind yourself you've gone through worse and came out OK, and that you will again this time.

Don't Stop Running,


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Make Every Stumbling Block As a Stepping Stone


Woman in Blue Sleeveless Crop-top

Lord Nelson, one of the Britain's greatest naval commander encouraged his soldiers to fight for a great victory.

In the battlefield one of his soldiers approached him and told him that the edge of his sword was broken.

Nelson replied him thus: "Then take a step forward and fight."

In a battle, no explanation is required. Only action is required. For that courage is needed.

In fact life is also a battlefield. We have to overcome many difficulties and stumbling blocks.

Make every stumbling block as a stepping stone. Then victory is yours.

Once a mother was walking along with his small boy on a ground. Suddenly the boy fell down. Helplessly he looked his mother. She was standing still watching her son. The son slowly stood up rubbing his hands. The mother asked him to show his hands. It was empty. She told him," My dear son, you could have taken at least some sand in your hand. You have to gain something in every fall". The mother's training worked. Needless to say that the son shaped himself and became a great hero.

The Jewish proverb rightly says, "When you have no choice, mobilize the spirit of courage.

"Success is never final and failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts" so said George F. Tilton.

Thomas Alva Edison's mother instilled in him values such as love, sacrifice and bravery. Once at the Grand Trunk Railroad he saved a three year old child from a runaway boxcar. The child's father Mackenzie, who was a station Agent was very much pleased and in gratitude he taught Edison telegraphy. Edison's courage paid him handsomely. He worked hard and as he advanced in years he went on from one success to another. He became the greatest inventor.

Napoleon Bonaparte rightly said that, 'courage is not having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength'.

Mahatma Gandhi stood like a rock against the mighty British Empire with non-violence as his only weapon. Churchill remarked, "I could defeat him if he comes with some weapon. But he is strange. He has no weapon. Then how could I fight him?"

The mighty British Empire was not able to face one single weaponless small figure. Such was his courage.

Mistakes and failures are common in everybody's life. We have to analyze our mistakes.

And we have to learn a lesson from every failure and the mistakes are not to be repeated.

Think deeply. Plan correctly. Act fast. Then success is yours.

With courage even the space could be conquered.

As the great poet Robert Browning rightly said," Ah! But a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's heaven for?


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Feeling Defeated? How to Overcome Failure & Power Up Your Confidence



A couple years back, a client was talking about acting. They had performed in plays most of their life.

They told me how much sweat, blood, and tears goes into one single play. The hours and HOURS of learning the material... memorizing their lines... and getting ready for the show. Despite all this preparation, something inevitably happens the day of the show... something you wouldn't expect...

They said, more often than not, someone will forget their lines or make a mistake on stage.

So NOT just a mistake but a VERY PUBLIC mistake. (In some cases in-front of hundreds of people)

What do they do about it?

When it happens, the cast members simply adjust to the mistake.

They flow with it.

They roll with it.

They play along with it.

They even make up lines if they have to.

I had no idea!

Looking back on all the plays I'd seen, I wondered how many had to be adjusted because of mistakes.

Crazy thing is, I didn't notice and neither did the people I was with...

The truth is... most people don't.

I heard something similar from a former Chicago Cubs employee. He told me how one day, they were preparing for the first pitch of the game, when the guy who was supposed to bring out the ball, waltzed out there WITHOUT it...

(Mind you, that's in-front of thousands of people and on LIVE television.)

Once he realized it, he just kept waving to the crowd, casually walks back to the dugout, grabs the ball, and goes back out there.

Besides management, hardly anyone noticed it...

Now think about both of those situations. Hundreds if not thousands of people are watching when these mistakes happen...

Yet hardly anyone notices the mistake.

If a VERY public mistake like that is hardly detected - what are the chances that the little ones in our daily lives are?

Very often though, people beat themselves up about little mistakes they make - and think that EVERYONE is going to notice what happened.

Chances are no one saw it...

And as long as you "mend the fence" or "course correct" you have nothing to worry about.

So instead of pummeling yourself (Which most people are VERY good at!)

Maybe we should take lessons from theater (and the Cubs) when mistakes happen...

Roll with it

Play along with it

Have fun with it

Because the show goes on.


http://ezinearticles.com/?Feeling-Defeated?-How-to-Overcome-Failure-and-Power-Up-Your-Confidence&id=9898643

Message From the Universe: Relationship's Realities



"It's rather easy to let go of the past, once you realize that no matter how differently things might have gone, you still couldn't be loved more than you now are. Nor could you have more to look forward to.

Don't-cha think?
The Universe"

We all went through really bad relationships/marriages in the past that molded our personality in a way you would have never imagined. Many are left with scars that are very difficult to remove, hence, bring their fear of being abandoned into the new relationship. That fear is based on how the previous relationship ended, depends if you were the one who broke their heart or you got yours broken. Staying in a toxic relationship for the sake of doing so, to avoid the stigma of failure, isn't healthy either. With 50% rate of divorce happening in this country, we are all accustomed to meet someone who dealt or is going through this depressing predicament. Divorce is so common that if you meet someone that is first time married for over 20 years, there is DEFINITELY something with that couple.

I am not saying that divorce is imminent in every relationships, and that we are all destined to suffer from that ordeal no matter how hard we work on it, but the reality is that as long as you learn from your past experience and NEVER bring the same unresolved issues in the next relationship, you will learn how to do things better and grow spiritually from it. We all make mistakes, no one is perfect and we should all accept that fact. When two people get together in a relationship, they both bring it their share of insecurities, questions, concerns, issues and always wonder how this new loving partnership can work in synergy. As long as you both are ready to make it happen and to communicate daily to what bothers you or concerns you the most, you will already be ahead among the 7.1 billion of people living on our planet. Communication is key and it is easy to forgo it in the fear of hurting the other person. When this trend continues, the party who want to express themselves because of certain behavioral patterns that are not desirable from the other party in question, the anger and frustration grows until it explodes, and when it does, OUCH, all hell break loose. Let me ask you this? Who is at fault? The person for holding in or the one for not knowing how to change their behavior because of lack of communication? If you are discontent about something, share it with your partner IMMEDIATELY. Do not hold it in. Tell it as it is, yes, it might sting, but that will save you from potential delayed nightmares in the near future.


http://ezinearticles.com/?Message-From-the-Universe:-Relationships-Realities&id=9666210

The Choices You Make, Make You

Woman Lying on Green Grass While Holding Pencil

This certainly seems rather obvious and hard to argue with. So why do a majority of people prefer to play the blame game for their lot in life? If I had a dollar for every time I have talked to an athlete or an athlete's parent who told me they could have been a professional athlete but, 'their coach didn't promote them,' or 'screwed them over,' I'd be retired already. Other often repeated 'reasons' people fail to achieve their goals include: "The timing was not right," "I didn't have enough time," "My circumstances changed," and "I just lost interest."

I often tell my clients that it is a lot quicker to go from failure to success than it is to go from excuses to success. You only have a limited amount of time and energy so how you choose to use both will determine who you become and where you end up. Making mistakes and failing are an inevitable part of life for all of us (except Kim Jong-un). Perfection is an attractive concept but it does not exist in reality.

If you are able to view mistakes and failure as simply part of the process, you won't feel the need to make excuses when they occur. Learning to accept this fact and take responsibility for all of your choices and actions leads to a secure feeling inside of you and eliminates the need for blame and excuses.

I also tell my clients that, 'Blame is just a way to temporarily discharge your own pain and discomfort in situations.' I suppose it is part of human nature to go for the easy short-term relief provided by blame and excuses, but the truth is it does not take as much work as you may think to create a new habit of taking responsibility. Best of all the pay-off will include relief of substantial pain and discomfort for the rest of your life as well as increased performance and success in all of your endeavors.

Creating a habit of taking responsibility will not assure your success in any of your endeavors. However, I can guarantee that until you do create this habit you will never perform anywhere near your peak levels. Think of excuses and blame the same way you (hopefully) think of heroin. It may make you feel better initially, but it won't be worth the damage it does to you over time. When was the last time you (or anyone you know) used heroin to enable themselves to perform at the highest level?

The Dalia Lama said it best: "When you think everything is someone else's fault, YOU will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, YOU will learn both peace and joy.


https://ezinearticles.com/?The-Choices-You-Make,-Make-You&id=9550780

Befriend Your Mistakes: Explore and Soar!

               

Mistakes and how you manage them will, to quite a large extent, determine your path and the degree of success that you experience in this world.

Too often, mistakes are viewed as roadblocks or detours on your journey toward accomplishing your goals. But think about the impact of this reaction...

Can you see how this is really an overly cautious and self-defeating perspective? One that clamps a tight lid on your curiosity and your creativity?

Think about how children learn, exploring their world for the first time. How many bumps and bruises do they collect as they learn to put one foot ahead of the other? How many unsuccessful tries does it take before those first successful steps?

And yet, this is anything but wasted time. Along with each so-called 'failure' comes the incremental learning that eventually leads to success.

Mistakes - They Never Get Old
And so it is with us, too, no matter how old and how experienced we are. Our miscues and errors can always be mined for gems of wisdom.

Jony Ive has a very practical perspective on this whole process.

But who is Jony Ive and why should we be interested in what he has to say?

Well, he's Apple's senior vice president of design and he has played a very significant role in shaping Apple's design choices since he joined the company in 1996. Arguably one of the most successful companies in the world, much of Apple's success is due to its twinning of technological excellence with a unique and elegant aesthetic.

And what Jony Ive says is this:

"There's no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times."

If you're afraid of getting it "wrong" you're not going to try the idea you just had. You'll dismiss it out of hand, and then you'll never know what might have come of it.

In fact, eventually you'll probably stop even having so many ideas. You're training yourself to shy away from "mistakes." This, in turn narrows your world and nips many a possibility in the bud. It's a challenge that many people face - and perfectionists, in particular, struggle with this.

How do YOU feel about it? What does your learning process look like and where do you put a lid on your own creativity?

It's really worth thinking about - and I'd love to hear what you discover as you explore.



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Why Mistakes Lead To Massive Inner Growth When You Live Purposefully



Make Decisions In Alignment With Your Highest Values

It's certain if you're reading this that you've made mistakes throughout your life, some of which you may regret.

Mistakes are unavoidable because they are sewn into the fabric of life and none are immune to them.

You might fear making mistakes because you believe they are damaging. Sometimes they are, for example taking a wrong dose of medication, cheating on your spouse or illegal activities.

But primarily we are talking about life's mistakes related to: career, finances, business, health, etc.

Mistakes are pivotal in your personal development and lead to massive personal growth.

Stephen R. Covey states in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: "It is not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response to those things."

While mistakes are fundamental to your personal development, they can also erode your character and weaken your self-esteem. If you recollect back to your childhood, mistakes were associated with being reprimanded.

You may carry this burden throughout adulthood hoping to make amends, not realising you're trying to heal something that is not broken.

I use the term purposefully in the title to draw your attention to living consciously, in contrast to automatically. The former invites you to make decisions that are congruent with your highest values and true character.

The latter denotes someone unconscious to their beliefs and motives. They act with little conscious awareness until much later on. They are living their childhood wounds without making peace with them.

Purposeful living means living intentionally with values that reinforce character. Therefore, if you are not making mistakes regularly, you are not abiding by your core values.

"Purpose in life is concerned with what we most deeply value, and purposeful living is concerned with whether we're living for what matters most," explains Victor J. Strecher in Life on Purpose: How Living for What Matters Most Changes

Mistakes are a doorway for inner expansion. They are pivotal moments in your life's experience. The period that follows mistakes is characterised by a change in values and beliefs to coincide with a new level of awareness.

Mistakes Are Part Of Your Journey

I've had the good fortune of making countless mistakes throughout my life.

I turned my back on a career in the creative field because I was no longer passionate about it. This coincided with less than optimal health choices, including overconsumption of alcohol and junk foods, conducive to the creative profession I was in.

It took a health scare while abroad to evaluate what was important. When I look back on my mistakes, each one led to a shift in awareness and major breakthroughs.

You needn't experience an awakening to receive the benefits of personal growth, however every mistake is an opportunity to expand your mental landscape.

You cannot make mistakes in a purposeful universe because there are no exams in life. I have no evidence of what takes place in the afterlife, let alone if it exists. For now, focus on the life you have and live it intentionally knowing mistakes are part of the journey.

Stephen R. Covey says: "Do not fear mistakes-fear only the absence of creative, constructive, and corrective responses to those mistakes."

I was drawn to a comment on TV recently regarding a documentary about women living in the Australian outback, known for its harsh conditions.

One woman interviewed said something that personifies the spirit of life. After losing her husband in a tragic motorcycle accident on their property she said: "Life is not fair, but it is still good."

In light of that, what if your mistakes were life leaving you clues to your success?

What if they were an opportunity to draw you closer to your goals?

Granted, they may be frustrating at the time and difficult to move past. The problem is not the mistakes themselves but your perception of them. It makes sense to consider problems as signposts leading to victory instead of obstacles slowing you down.

It was the late American businessman Thomas J. Watson Sr. who said: "Would you like me to give you the formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure... You're thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all... You can be discouraged by failure-or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember, that's where you'll find success. On the other side of failure."

Live A Purposeful Life

If you want to accomplish great things in life, strength of character is fundamental to achievement because it is developed in those tenuous moments.

To realise your goals, embrace mistakes and allow them to shape your character since you will appreciate them more when looking back on your life.

Mistakes are signs that lead to substantial inner growth.

They are crucial to nudging you closer to your goals and ambitions.

Mistakes are life's way of teaching you vital lessons to expand your mind to new horizons you otherwise would not have expected.

Gary Keller and Jay Papasan believe, "Extraordinary results aren't built solely on extraordinary results. They're built on failure too. In fact, it would be accurate to say that we fail our way to success."

"When we fail, we stop, ask what we need to do to succeed, learn from our mistakes, and grow. Don't be afraid to fail. See it as part of your learning process and keep striving for your true potential."

My past mistakes opened the doors to massive discoveries and a rise in motivation in the weeks and months that followed.

I liken it to once training with a boxing instructor years ago to improve my fitness. He would often strike me with a forceful blow to the head with focus pads when I dropped my guard. As much as I despised it, I become better at thinking on my feet and not reacting.

Therefore, my mistake of dropping my guard reminded me to protect my head at all times since I knew what would happen if I didn't.

If you're frustrated with your mistakes, I urge you to ask one simple question: "What could I possibly learn from this?"

That question alone will help you focus on solutions rather than being mired in your mistakes.

Consult those you respect whether they have made similar mistakes in the past. It might be the mistakes you're making are ones most people make.

Ultimately, mistakes are crucial to learning and gaining knowledge and insights.

Learn to embrace them and rise above your fears to live a purposeful life that you have always sought to live.



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Give Your Hundred Percent in Whatever You Do and Become a Champion


The power of motivation is often either underestimated or brushed aside by some people. People fail to realize that motivating someone in any arena of life only cultivates more force in generating positive feelings. To pat someone on the back, to congratulate someone when the going gets great or to vouch for someone during his peak form is a mere reinforcement of your support to a person. However, the real use of motivation comes in when the chips are down; nothing seems to be working fine and when someone is under pressure to perform.

When the going gets tough, all that one needs is someone to put an arm around the shoulder, reaffirm the faith and ignore a few mistakes. On the contrary, most people go wrong in this context and run out of patience. They create an atmosphere of extreme pressure and instead of creating a scope for a comeback, they pull the person deeper into stress and kill the performance totally. This in turn results in loss of love, understanding and results.

Think about it - how do you handle a situation at work/home when someone makes a few mistakes and perhaps repeats them? You run out of patience and let all hell break loose and go on an emotional and moral rampage destroying a person's confidence and make him feel like an 'idiot'.

Or do you go even crazier by making your anger visible and treat the person without any respect, use abusive language and express disgust? There may be things at stake; however, just lashing out on a person would not help. It only deteriorates the situation.

Look around for the most successful leaders from any walk of life. Their success is not a result of their individual brilliance; it is because of their ability to bring the best out of others in all circumstances, especially when the going gets tough. It is their ability to stand by a person in bad times, assure support and express faith which eventually wins the day for them.

The person receiving support during such times will obviously bounce back and when he does, he will always remain obliged to you. He would want to perform more for you than for himself, he would feel so obliged that he will always have you in mind before he goes out there to perform again. In simple words your ability to handle a person with care in tough times will not only help the person, it will also get results and create a great work atmosphere.

Leadership is never easy, and great leaders are not born every day. However, we can always pick up a few magical tips and work around them to get the best out of others and ourselves.

Here's what you can do to help a person out of tough times:


  • Be patient, assure support and sound advice to help the person.
  • Control your anger, hide your emotions and choose your words with care.
  • Think results, but results will not come until you get the person to perform.
  • Support a person in tough times and win him for a lifetime.

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Your Best Teacher Is Your Last Mistake


When you value the fact that your best teacher is your last mistake, you come to realize that you are only human. And even if you have your fair share of problems, you can recognize that everyone makes mistakes in life. There are no exceptions to the rule, but why is an error our finest tutor?
So why do we get upset when we make mistakes? What is the reason we blame the people around us when we cannot do it? And why do we live with regrets after making blunders?

Your last mistake is your best teacher who is showing you to learn from your errors. It just means that whenever you make a blunder, you come to see that what you did was wrong. The mistake you made teaches you a lesson. And you learn for future reference that you do not repeat that slip-up.

Therefore, it demonstrates that your last mistake is the best teacher. Learning is all about trial and error. Making mistakes does not tell you that you are less capable. Even when you make efforts in life, it may bring failures. Growth only happens when you learn from falling and apply the lesson to your next try.

Applying the Lesson of the Best Teacher
A baby tries to walk, falls, gets up and tries again, but never complains. So you have to learn from the mistakes you do, and then apply that lesson the next time around. This way, you will not repeat the same error.

Your last mistake is teaching you not to do something you did in a wrong way earlier. And it is precisely what a great teacher does, right? As best teachers, successful people say that failures are stepping-stones leading to success. With each mistake and failure, you tend to learn new things to not repeat the same mistake over and over.

Often after making an error or failing, questions are more challenging to our education than answers. They test your integrity, and if you listen, it demonstrates respect for the lesson you receive. You have to practice through tries and blunders, stumble and fall. Then you must listen, learn and apply the feedback from your last mistake.

Learning from Your Last Mistake
There should be no time wasted by grieving over past mistakes. As your best teacher, learn what you can from last error and move on. Your mistakes have the power to turn you into someone better than you were before. Making mistakes is a part of life, you learn so that you do not repeat them.

We are all human, and no one is perfect. How you correct your last mistake defines you. Remember that your errors are meant to guide and lead you, and not to identify you. To make mistakes is far better than to fake perfections.

Your last mistake is your best teacher, not your enemy. An error is just temporary and not a dead-end. Yet, most of us have a hard time admitting when we make a mistake. It always seems more natural to justify it or find an excuse for it.

Your Last Mistake and the Brain
Each time something happens in your life, your brain keeps a record the experience. It gathers snapshots of information and creates a file. Then your brain turns into a story by filling in the gaps based on your past experiences. Your last mistake becomes then one long story in your mind.

On the other hand, when you have a great and successful experience, your brain reinforces all the links in the story. It then increases the odds for the same actions to be repeated in the future. With experience and over time, you create more fruitful stories and thus fewer last mistakes.

You need to understand that life is inevitably unpredictable. It does not matter how old you are or how many experiences you got, errors are inevitable. Life is full of slip-ups, and there will always be the best teacher to illustrate your last mistake.

Growing through Mistakes
Growth takes place when you challenge yourself. When something becomes easy, you have to expand and try a more advanced level. You need to go outside your comfort zone. And yes, you will make mistakes and fail at times. Growth only occurs when you are in uncharted territory.

As a human being, you always come to a point in which you realize that your life has its share of mistakes, some bigger or smaller than others. But there is something you can do, and that is to let your last mistake be your best teacher.

Real maturity is when someone makes mistakes, and you try to understand their circumstances instead of putting them down. Errors and blunders are universal, so learn to forgive.

Your Best Teacher is Your Last Mistake
You need to become someone who can recognize your last mistake as an opportunity to win in life. And you can only progress if you treat your errors as lessons from the past to assists you in your future.

Too many people are never able to get past their errors and are living a life without hope or plans for the future. The solution is to let your best teacher be your last mistake. Hold your head high, and do not live in the past. You just have to keep moving towards a better and brighter future.

If you focus on the positive thing you have done rather than just looking at your mistake; your life would run more efficiently. So, it all depends on how you handle your circumstances and what you learn from your mistake.

Tips to Learn from Your Last Mistake
To be truthful, what says a lot about you is how you deal with mistakes and failures! By noticing your habits, you can learn so much. More often than not, your best teacher is your last mistake. Here are some tips from your previous mistakes and how it can help you:


  • Face your fear of failing or making mistakes.
  • Live your life with fewer regrets.
  • Be humble enough to see your mistakes.
  • Forgive others for their mistakes.
  • Be courageous to admit your last mistake.
  • Use errors as the best teacher and as stepping-stones to rise above them.
  • Be wise enough to correct errors you make.
  • Find answers more rapidly.
  • Be easier on yourself, less critical, and less judgmental.
  • Learn how not to give up as soon as discomfort or failure shows up
  • Forgive and forget your past mistakes enough to get over them.

The Last Mistake - The Best Teacher
"We can always forgive mistakes if one has the courage to admit them." - Bruce Lee
Therefore, you learn so much more from your past errors and mistakes than you can when life is comfortable. Learn to admit your mistakes before it is too late to learn anything. You may feel like your last mistake seems like the end of the road. But know that there is a myriad of successful people who created success because of their mistakes.

I believe your best teacher is your last mistake. Learning is a process, so if you make a mistake and can reverse the effect, you would have learned more than you thought. So accept making mistakes and follow through with your dreams no matter what.



http://ezinearticles.com/?Your-Best-Teacher-Is-Your-Last-Mistake&id=9814623

Mistakes To Avoid When Working With The Law of Attraction


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No matter what you try to learn, or do in this life, you're going to be met with opposition. That includes going after your dreams with the notion of the Law of Attraction. Millions of people are pursuing their dreams with this, but they are not seeing results. The main reason is that they are making mistakes. When you are pushing forward to something great, you will need to do more than just test things out timidly. Often times, people push the boundaries of something new and give up fast. The reason why people give up fast is because they don't have a realistic view of what they are doing. Consider the following mistakes that you should avoid when working on something positive in your life.

Listening To The Skeptics

If you are going to do anything great in this life, you cannot adhere to what the skeptics will say. They are going to be pushing you in the wrong direction. Seriously, test out something new and chase the notion of improvement for your life and you're going to see that things can end up falling short in a lot of different areas. Listening to the skeptics out there is easy, and that's not going to help you get anywhere in your life. You'll need to silence them by moving forward away from what they are saying, and thinking out loud.

Giving Up Fast

Give something a week, and you may see results. But give things months on end and you will definitely see a positive result. The thing about life is that you cannot expect change to occur in 24 hours. Too often people work within the Law of Attraction and assume that they are going to see a huge jump in their life within a short span of time. That's not how this works. This is not a "fast" paced solution to changing your life. Instead, it's a long term plan for success in all things. If you want to see your world change, you're going to have to give it an ample amount of time to manifest. The more time you give it, the better the rewards are going to become.

Allowing Negativity To Reign

People that are trying to make a positive change in their lives will be met with negativity. Whether is' friends, family, coworkers, or just self-anguish, it's not a good thing. If you let negativity manifest in your life, you will end up with a huge drop off in success. There are no two ways about this, if you push this forward in the wrong area, you will see a drop in the results that you get. Negative reactions, commentary, and the pursuit of anything but a silver lining, will mess up your forward progress, guaranteed.

At the end of the day, remember that you control a lot about your life. You can control the way that you see things, the way you react, and the way that you can build on the right elements overall. Take your time building positivity and you will engage the Law of Attraction in all new ways.


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The Bumps In The Road

Each and everyone always have a choice to be happy. We need to learn the reasons for having bumps in the road, grow from them and stay positive.

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you are riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live! I've learned that fear limits your vision. Transform fear into freedom.

We cannot take more than one step at a time. And I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that because the days are long, the road is hard, the trials are there and I never know when, I have this little gray cloud that's over my head, when it's gonna start raining on me again. And I do need everyone's prayers. But I also believe that we're here for a purpose.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness.You have to get that through your head. It is not easy to become successful. Good things do not come easy. The road is lined with pitfalls. Resilience isn't a single skill. It's a variety of skills and coping mechanisms. But the roughest road often leads to the top.

If we know where we want to go, then even a stony road is bearable. It has never been, and never will be easy work! What he/she needs is education to turn him/her around. What appears to be the end of the road may simply be a bend in the road. Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Progress is rarely a straight line. Bad things happen to good people all the time. It sucks. It's not fair but then much of life isn't fair. It's how you live that matters. It's how you deal with the bumps in the road.

It's not always easy to get over some of those bumps in the road, those disillusionment and disappointments. It needs a strong will. Sometimes, it may take courage. I'm not going to let the past destroy my future. I'm pressing on. 
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are but I don't believe in circumstances.

Life is so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth is, it shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. Take a limitation and turn it into an opportunity. If you expect life to be easy, challenges will seem difficult. If you accept that challenges may occur, life will be easier.

Many times we are our worst enemy. If we could learn to conquer ourselves, then we will have a much easier time overcoming the obstacles that are in front of us. In the journey of life, certain paths may seem to be leading nowhere because of a mountain or hill on the way which may seem to be the end of the journey, but should a pilgrim of life climb such a mountain with tenacity and courage and gets to its apex, he would not only deeply feel and understand the tenacity and the courage it takes to climb the mountain, but he would also see ahead and have a clearer picture of the way forward better!

Life's greatest lessons are gained from our loses.I learn from them. if we approach them the right way. Mistakes are acceptable as long as the damage isn't too great.

This article is about how to overcome the roadblocks in life by acknowledging them as part of life and learning from them.

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How To Build Your Confidence Despite Committing Stupid Mistakes

Many of us have a notion that if we want to be confident, we have to replay our achievements in our minds to remind ourselves of them. But those who accept their idiocies are the real confident people.

Let us take the example of great achievers. If there are situations that may threaten the dignity they have earned due to their achievements and if they avoid facing such situations, we cannot say that they are confident. For instance, we all know that Roger Federer is not very strong on clay courts. So, if he avoids playing at Roland Garros fearing loss of image, we will certainly conclude that he lacks confidence. But we all know that he is taking part in the French Open every year despite knowing that the odds are against him. That is the reason our respect for him remains in
tact.

Similarly, accepting that we sometimes do silly and stupid things is the right way to build our confidence. In fact, every one of us act stupidly on many occasions. According to Erasmus, who authored "In Praise of Folly," "everyone is a fool by nature." He did not hesitate to confess that he himself was a fool because he used to be irrationally nervous when he met strangers. Not only that, whenever he attended banquets, he acted stupidly, despite the fact that everyone respected him for his terrific knowledge.

Whenever we act stupidly, we try to hide our mistakes because we fear humiliation. But if you aim to build your confidence, you must be ready to embrace your foolish acts.

One more mistake many of us commit is to think that proud people are confident. While doing so, we forget that even these people may do silly and stupid things in their life.

The best way to build confidence despite making these silly mistakes is to make fun of ourselves. For instance, if you lose your way in a new locality, you need not hesitate to admit your mistake and ask for the right directions. You can go a step further and make fun of yourself for being foolish and not preparing yourself suitably for the trip.

In other words, if you learn to make fun of yourself frequently, you will come to know that there is no need for you to be perfect for being accepted by others. In fact, you cannot do anything about your stupidity because there is not even a single soul on this planet that is not stupid. In short, true confidence is allowing yourself to be your natural self and accepting the consequences.

Teen Musings

It's the age all parents fear and the children so unwittingly fall prey to. Nobody can escape it, a select few remain in control, and many have succumbed to its idiocyncracies. The age when 'fitting in' is the main purpose of life. Yes, teenage is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

As I have grown up to be a fine adult, I realise what my parents told me was true. 'You will look back to this day, and feel nostalgic and stupid at this time.' Yes, I do look back to the time when I was five feet nothing and felt travelling in the Metro was the coolest thing to do. Hiring an auto, sneaking out of the house to travel, say, two metres was pretty gratifying and thrilling at the time. And sometimes, when I look back, I miss that adrenaline rush you get when you know you have an angry mother just waiting for you to ring the bell.

I'm not saying I enjoyed being scolded or rebuked; neither do I look back at such face offs fondly. But, those are the times which have defined me to be who I am today. I realise the anger, almost on the brink of rage, my mother must have been feeling back then. My little cousin, two and half years old, gets on my nerves the same way. I now realize that it does not mean my mother loved me less (which I did feel for about two years, by the way). But that she just wanted me to know and draw my own limits. Learn to adhere to rules, the importance of which I realise now, in the most pivotal period of my life.

I still remember the hideous report card which laughed at my face in the 8th Grade. I remember not being able to face my mother for hours, and weeping bitterly at the mere thought of having that wretched piece of card in front of me. But, nevertheless, it was something which pulled me up. It knocked some sense into me and made me realise that I liked getting good grades, even though the 'in' thing was to boycott studies altogether. It made me get that 9.6 in 10th and it's helping me get through this torment of a year too. The strong values which she embedded in me through that loud, screeching voice of hers reprimanding me has come to be more useful than I thought. I feel obliged to thank her.

But, that said, I was a pretty awesome teenager. I know she has learnt things from me too. I don't know what, and looking back right now nothing's striking me, but I'm positive she has taken something from me. Though my defining characteristics will always be the ones I picked up from her. The patience I have to neither implode nor explode from the emotions I feel are also her doing. Wow. I cannot write a single article in hindsight without mentioning my mother. It's true. I'll always be have a deep connection with my mother.

That said, this is for all the present day teenagers out there. Enjoy this phase, make your silly mistakes, but watch out for the grave ones. Your parents are there to catch you when you fall. But, make sure to learn from them. None of us enter this phase being perfect (all of us feel that way, though), none of us exit this phase being perfect. But, correcting your errors gets you that much closer to being a 'good' person, a person who knows the difference between right and wrong; and become a responsible adult.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Teen-Musings&id=9426556

Common Time Management Mistakes

Time management is a skill and there are many ways to sharpen this skill. Yet, there are certain methods of time management practised that cause your time to slip away unutilized rather than helping in saving it. Here is an eye opening article for some of the most common time management mistakes in practise.

Too much of Planning

It is good to make the "to-do" list. Also, it is a good idea to maintain an excel sheet of your work every day but scribbling a notebook with pen with how every hour of your day is spent is definitely not appropriate.

Too much of planning wastes time. You will need to use your sensibility to understand how the planning should be done. You cannot go on making chart about what you are going to do in the after-hours or re-write time and again the things that need to be done during the day. It will leave less time for you to do some actions.

Hence, stick to a basic planning procedure for the day, month, etc and do not over-do it.


Not Considering Logic


There is a joke which is said to distinguish between an intelligent person and a logical person. An intelligent person once asked a question that if one woman takes 9 months to deliver one baby then why cannot 9 women work together and produce a baby in one month. On the other hand, a logical person is well aware that the question is not worth thinking upon let alone asking someone.

Likewise, time management requires application of logic. Take only that much works in your hand that can be delivered in best quality. While making a time table remember that you are but a human and you will need a couple of minutes to relax. You will be drinking water, eating meal and going to washroom. Even if you can control the pin of your wrist watch you cannot control time.

There will be time that you have to wait for the lift, bus, taxi, dentist list, etc. Be a little flexible.

Unnecessary Multitasking

It sounds cool to do more than 2 tasks simultaneously in any given time but what about efficiency? Most of the people think that by multitasking they will manage to produce more work.

The simple example of it can be observed in an office. During lunch time a man do editing of a certain report with the one hand while chewing onto his sandwich (because it is lunch time), is attending a call explaining a certain figure to the person on the other end. In between he is using the other hand to right down what he wants to do on the weekend.

Now, the phone call could have been combined with any of the tasks but why write about the weekend party plan? Most of the psychologists agree that doing one task at a time with full concentration helps in increasing the work quality within a small time frame. Also, multi-tasking should only be performed if necessary.

Lack of Balance in Life

The idiom, "all work no play makes Jack a dull boy" has not been said without any reason. You will need to introduce a balance between your personal and professional life. 24/7 life too may keep you high but not for long. It will leave you exhausted as a person. Hence, divide your day or keep certain days just for work and certain just for fun.

Time management is a trick but you need not to be a magician to perform it. Simply recognize your priorities and make an action plan accordingly.

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Clarity Takes Courage



Clarity is powerful and is a primary ingredient to performing at your best. It is poorly understood and generally not a feature of most people's strategies. Why? Because we are too busy being busy. We take pride in taking "massive action."

Yet, if you are not clear about where you want to go and why, if you arrive at your chosen destination at all, you will likely find it was not the solution you were seeking. If you even make it to your goal, you may find that you wasted much time, energy, and money and made unnecessary mistakes - a.k.a. "learning by trial and error" - along the way.

Why do we typically do this?

1. It's because we don't know what we don't know.
2. We have not been taught the energy-efficient way of creating and innovating with intention.
3. We believe it takes "hard work" in order to be successful.
4. We don't know what we really want.
5. We don't know who we really are and what our authentic, heart-felt vision is.

There are other reasons, but these are five significant ones. We tend toward massive action without insight because we are not used to the idea of reflection and restoration, and we don't know and trust ourselves. We don't listen to our own inner intuitive voice.

We are too busy being distracted by all of the voices of clamoring gurus who know better than you what you "should do." Ouch. This one, more than once, has burned me. It takes courage to break away from the external loud voices and get to know your own inner guidance. It takes courage to learn how to slow down and quiet not only the other voices but the confusion within yourself, as well.

To see with mental clarity the details of your new vision will require you to be still; something most people seem to run from.

Obsessive busyness is a brain-wired habit, and habits can be broken. It will take commitment. It will require you learn about the operating system of your brain if you want to accelerate this process.

It will take confidence, and it will take having the clarity to make up your mind to change your mind. You can do it. You just need to pull up the courage and intend to get clear. I've learned the hard way so that you can learn easier. I get a thrill from being able to help others perform at their best.

Our work and home environments will become more enjoyable when we slow down and clarify our own unique self-expression. And learning never stops - we never arrive - I'm still growing. I just have a head start on many because courage is one of my highest personal values.

I have changed the way I see growth and development. It's not about fixing anyone. It's about knowing yourself; it's about reconnecting your mind with your heart. It's learning to listen to and see your own unique vision first clearly in your mind's eye and then flowing with the unfolding insights and synchronicities of how you can manifest your vision within the context of your everyday life. It's living with mental agility instead of rigid, less-than-best performance.

Performing at your best requires clear intention. Life is an adventure; it's meant to be enjoyed - not endured. I hope you pull up the courage to walk the path of leadership and personal development to learn how to perform at your best while living a peace-filled life. Chaos, fear, and stress as a routine occurrence, "be gone." Intend to see clearly now. Life is good - no, it's great.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Clarity-Takes-Courage&id=7962181

Letter To My Younger Self (By Nina Bingham)

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Letter To My Younger Self:

Style counts. Your personal panache (or lack thereof) says a lot about you. My motto has always been: "If you can't be good, at least be stylish." I don't mean it in the fashion sense. I mean that if you're going to make mistakes, make them big, and make them your own. Be 100% invested in whatever you do, even your missteps. If you can't give 100% then you've "settled," and you're living outside of your passion. If you compromise, you'll forever wonder what could have been, and is there anything more torturous than knowing your dream was within your grasp but you didn't reach for it?

When you live true to yourself, people may not understand; they may not agree. You've got to get past the need for approval because if you don't, you're never going to belong to you. There are energy vampires just itching to drain every last drop of authenticity and originality out of you. You were not born to preserve someone else's dream; you were born to be an original. Yet we humans keep competing and comparing, as if we were cookie-cutter people. Being the same only breeds boredom and low self-esteem. So how come it's going to take you a whole lifetime to learn to love yourself?

The irony of low self-esteem is that you were the only one who didn't see how super fantastic you were. You've had personal panache from the start. You couldn't see it because your eyes look outwards. You couldn't see yourself, you could only see others, and then others became your mirrors. Because they could only see the outside of you and not your eager heart, they discouraged you from making a bold statement. They didn't realize how much you'd been given, and how much you wanted to share. But that was way back; and here you are, miles and miles from where you started, and your heart never outgrew the miracle of you. Still, you never imagined it would take so much time to grow into you. All the while you've been looking for answers outside of yourself-a detour from the main event: your precious uniqueness. The answer's been walking around in your skin the whole mixed up, messed up time. You were supposed to be listening to you all along.

My advice to you, younger self, is to never "dummy down" your bright sheen for someone who doesn't like sparkly things. Never apologize for your inherent quirks, oddities and original ideas, because it's what makes you... you. The world obviously needs you just as you are, or you wouldn't be here. I say: Be the freak you are. Be extravagant, be outrageous, be too much if you must, flaunting your panache. Be the sun-kissed, fierce daredevil that was born to shake things up. When the energy vampires try to steal your fireworks, just pop one open and let the sparks fly! Because nobody can dull your sheen without your permission.

Learning your worth may take a lifetime, but it's worth the search. You'll forget who you are along the way. You'll leave behind little pieces of your heart every time it breaks, given to other broken-hearted superstars. Gathering those pieces back again won't be possible. There's no glue strong enough to hold it all together. So take what's left and re-invent yourself. Give the world a second version of you, but make it the right one. The next one will either be hard, unyielding and sharp to the touch, or you'll be unapologetically unforgettable.

Whatever you do, don't let your greatness get you down. Wear your crown for the world to admire. If others can't see it, pity them. Perhaps they haven't discovered how to live true to themselves. Remember, nobody said it was going to be easy, seeing as how you're royalty and all. But nobody can do it like you can, in the exact way you can. I hope you'll fall in love with the girl-woman in the mirror, because you're the one you've been waiting for. Until then, take my advice: at least be stylish.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Letter-To-My-Younger-Self&id=9459748