Since I’m on the subject of Failure and Success I wanted to touch briefly on a couple of other points. Those points are 1. failure and success are not mutually exclusive and 2. focus on the success and not the failure.

In the first point, it is not necessary to avoid failure to gain success. In fact, it is difficult to succeed at all unless you give yourself the chance to fail first. So comes the phrase “fail forward fast”. This means that instead of worrying about failure at whatever it is you are doing, take action and get started. If you fail, learn from the mistakes and apply that new knowledge towards your goals. Correct and continue.

The second point is that you must focus your attention on the success you are working to achieve. As Earl Nightingale mentions in the video The Strangest Secret, your mind does not know the difference between failure or success and it will return to you whatever you place in it. So while it is important to accept your failures and learn from them, it is even more important that you do not dwell on the failure itself but focus on your upcoming success. By focusing on failure, you will only gain more failure.

Some things I do to keep focused on my goals is to write them down where I can see them. I create vision boards with pictures of the life I want. I create videos that incorporate multimedia to spark my memory and imagination.

Some examples:

I have two pieces of paper taped to my laptop. One that lists my top 5 passions (to figure this out read The Passion Test
). The other is a lists of actions I need to do each day that are consistent each day and support the achievement of my goals as shown on my list of passions.

Another is that I have placed an image on my computer’s desktop that shows what I want and every time I start my computer, shut it down, or change programs, I see that image. Currently, the image I have is the home that I designed as our future home is Costa Rica.

I also created a video around the idea of living in Costa Rica. It has images from the house and the surroundings as well as sounds that I would hear if I was actually there.

Finally, one very important thing that I do that helps me focus on success is to day dream. Some people thing day dreaming is wasteful. I have to disagree. Day dreaming often triggers new ideas or reminds me of things I need to do. Most importantly, it helps me focus on something I want. For those that think day dreaming is wasteful, I would suggest that they have not defined their dreams clearly enough to make day dreaming pleasant. I would point them towards The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose to correct that situation.