Tag: Success

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Teamwork

Teamwork

I like to wrote about the endurance of the human spirit.

Below is a story I found on the Internet. I hope you enjoy it.

….

During World War II, Ed Sullivan asked comedian and actor Jimmy Durante to entertain a group of soldiers who had just gotten back from the war and were temporarily staying on Ellis Island.

Jimmy said he would but he only had time for a short performance because he had to catch a ferry in time to do his radio show back in New York.

But when Jimmy got on stage, something interesting happened…

He went through a short monologue and then stayed.

The applause grew louder and louder and he kept staying. Pretty soon, he had been on for a full 30 minutes.

Finally he took a last bow, and left the stage. Backstage someone stopped him and said, “I thought you had to go after a few minutes. What happened?”

“Well, I did have to go,” he answered, “but let me show you the reason I stayed. You can see for yourself if you’ll look down on the front row.“

In the front row were two men, each of whom had lost an arm in the war. One had lost his right arm, and the other had lost his left. Together, they were able to clap, and that’s exactly what they were doing, loudly and cheerfully.

Now that is teamwork in action.

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Overcoming the “Dark Night of the Soul” Series — Part Ten — Why Fearing Mistakes Holds You Back And Is The Greatest Mistake Of All

Believe In Yourself 

Many people are afraid of making mistakes when they attempt to do something. Some are so petrified of making a mistake that they are afraid of trying something new, afraid of expanding their skill set because they are afraid of doing it incorrectly and making a mistake. They’re afraid of the embarrassment of making the mistake in front of others, and they’re afraid of possible ridicule they may experience from making that mistake in front of others. However, allowing yourself to not try anything new, going through new experiences, and learning new skills is a recipe for holding you back from your greatest potential and is the greatest mistake of all that you can make.

When you shy away from trying anything new, you’re limiting your own potential and your own ability to handle things. It also limits your ability to achieve accomplishments you set out to do, as well as limits you from achieving your best possible self. Who knows what you can accomplish if you are willing to try new things. You may learn you have an innate ability to produce something or handle something that could help the world, but if you are afraid to try an activity or two that involves this skill, you may never discover it, and the world at large will suffer because of your fear to try the new activity that could reveal your hidden skill.

Additionally, you are denying yourself of your true potential by being afraid of taking on new challenges and activities. You think you are protecting yourself from fear, embarrassment, and ridicule by avoiding doing new tasks whenever possible, but in truth, you are just hiding behind the usual tasks you know you can do well because it’s safe and comfortable. Virtually every great person has had to get out of their comfort zone to find out what they truly excel at and make their lives meaningful and great.

Sure, you can go life just doing the mundane tasks you know you can do well, but will that truly fulfill you? Will you truly be happy? Will you achieve your best ability by just doing the mundane tasks you know you can do well? Very likely, you will not. Unfortunately, you’ll never know your real self and your truest, highest potential if you don’t try new activities that expand your skill set and help you to grow as an individual. Therefore, shying away from new activities out of fear, embarrassment, and/or ridicule is the greatest mistake you can make and the greatest obstacle to you reaching your truest, fullest potential.

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Overcoming the “Dark Night of the Soul” Series — Part Nine — Why Trying New Activities/Challenges Is A Great Learning Experience

This is Part Nine of a Ten Part series on how to overcome the depressing “Dark Night of the Soul” that people experience

Most people get nervous when they try new activities or challenges. Some people get so anxious and apprehensive about it that they attempt to avoid trying any new activities or challenges whenever and wherever possible. Unfortunately, that approach helps to limit their growth as an individual because it’s trying new activities and challenges that really help you to grow as an individual, achieve your truest potential, and really make the greatest impact on the world. Additionally, you also receive the best benefits (fame, fortune, recognition, etc.) from making the greatest impact on the world, but that only comes from growing as an individual through trying new activities/challenges.

When you try a new activity or challenge, you are stepping outside of your comfort zone to learn something new and improve your skill set. You are looking to improve yourself by going through the experience and learning the process. Chances are high that you will make some mistakes along the way; the process of making mistakes is also a learning experience. Some people shy away from making mistakes out of fear or because they are afraid that they will be embarrassed or ridiculed for making them, but in truth, making mistakes is part of the learning process that helps us to grow as individuals and to better ourselves. This is how we learn to achieve our truest and greatest potential.

Virtually no one achieves their greatest potential just doing the same tasks day after day, not experimenting with or experiencing anything new. Sometimes, you have to step outside of doing the ordinary, comfortable things in order to see things from a new light or perspective that enables you to find a better way to do the same, ordinary things or even to create something new that can make life better for many.

By trying new challenges/experiences, you can learn a new skill set, plus you learn more about yourself and your ability to handle and rebound from difficulty when you likely make a mistake or two during the process. Life doesn’t go smoothly that often; part of adjusting to and making the most out of life is to be able to overcome difficulties and still producing at a high level. Going through new challenges and experiences can help you to gain a new perspective on things, learn to overcome difficulties or challenges (especially unexpected ones), and boost your self-confidence to where you are confident you can handle unexpected difficulties and be able to achieve your greatest potential.

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Overcoming the “Dark Night of the Soul” Series — Part Six — How To Encourage Yourself To Take On New Activities/Challenges

Almost everyone gets a sense of nervousness when they take on a new activity or challenge; some may see it as more a sense of excitement, while others see it as more a sense of anxiety or dread. This latter group may attempt to avoid new activities or challenges as much as possible but doing that will hinder this group in its ability to achieve the greatness they can truly achieve because it prevents them from attaining new skills, new experiences, and a new sense of self-esteem and self-confidence from taking on that activity or challenge. Therefore, if you are part of that latter group and try to avoid taking on new activities or challenges, how do you encourage yourself to do so so that you can grow as an individual and achieve your greatest potential?

One thing you can do is to take a deep breath and relax. Don’t fret over the new activity or challenge and think that you must do it perfectly or else something bad is going to happen. Most mistakes are forgivable, especially when you are trying something new and have never done such an activity before. Mistakes can and should be considered as “learning tools” that enable you to learn more about yourself, gain new skills and experience, and essentially help you move closer to achieving your best potential possible.

The second thing you can do is to look upon the new activity or challenge as something fun to test yourself, sort of like a competition. See how well you do the activity or challenge, then reward yourself afterward for the effort you put in, even if you didn’t do the activity or challenge perfectly or as well as you expected. By going through the experience, you will grow as an individual and enable yourself to reach your greatest potential possible.

The third thing you can do is to see the new activity or challenge as a “break” from the norm. You know you can do specific things in your field/industry well; now, you get to see what you can do with tasks or activities that are not in your everyday activities. See the new activity or challenge as a “vacation” from the ordinary, everyday activities and enjoy the experience. By seeing this new activity or challenge as a “vacation” or respite from the usual, you’ll enjoy the experience more, want to take on more activities or challenges more often, and be able to grow more as an individual and reach your best potential and greatness.

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Overcoming the “Dark Night of the Soul” Series — Part Five — How To Keep A Positive Frame Of Mind

Keeping a positive frame of mind is key to doing your best work and overcoming life’s difficult periods when things don’t go as well as planned or some unexpected challenge pops up during our lives. However, it’s not always easy to keep that positive frame of mind in the most difficult of times. Learn how you can keep a positive frame of mind below.

Keeping a positive frame of mind means thinking positively, even when things don’t go as planned or when things seem to be at their worst possible outcome. It’s the “glass half-full” versus “glass half-empty” that many people seem to look at when it comes to various aspects of life. For instance, a person with a positive frame of mind may look upon losing his/her house to a fire as where he/she and his/her family were fortunate because they all survived and can rebuild. A person with a negative frame of mind may look upon losing his/her house to a fire as an unrecoverable disaster because all his/her possessions are gone and that starting over is “too hard.”

It’s really one’s frame of mind that influences one’s outlook of events, as the example above shows. However, even the most positive person can suffer periods where he/she is in despair because everything in a situation turns out for the worst and/or a bunch of negative circumstances occur repeatedly right after another.

For even the most positive person to overcome such difficult periods in life, he/she needs to step back from the situation, take a deep breath, and recall earlier instances in his/her life where everything seems to turn out wrong or for the worst. Then he/she needs to recall that things did eventually turn around and that he/she survived that hard period. Recalling that sequence of events can calm the person and show that that same pattern will occur again, that this current hard period of events will also turn around for the positive; the person just needs to be strong enough to “weather the storm” and work toward a more positive period of events.

Therefore, it’s important to always keep a positive frame of mind, but that can be difficult for even the most positive person when many negative events occur at one time in a person’s life. It’s important for a person to step back, take a deep breath, realize that even these dark periods in life turn around for the better, then work toward bringing around that happier period as soon as possible.

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Overcoming the “Dark Night of the Soul” Series — Part Four — How Fear Stops You From Achieving Greatness

To achieve greatness, you must be willing to grow as an individual and improve yourself. To grow as an individual and improve yourself, you must be willing to expand your skill set and be willing to have many experiences that can improve this skill set. This means that you cannot be afraid to challenge yourself, take reasonable risks, and stepping outside of your “comfort zone.” If you are fearful, you will not reach the greatness you can achieve.

Many people are fearful and hesitant to step outside of their “comfort zones,” preferring to do things that they are familiar with. They prefer to do activities and stay in fields that they are comfortable in, that they know they do well in. Few people prefer to step outside of those zones to try something new, handle new, etc. for a few reasons. One reason is because they fear they will not do well with the new activity or challenge. A second reason is fear of embarrassment because other people may see them struggle with this new activity or challenge. A third reason is that they fear ridicule from people because they struggle with this new activity or challenge.

Fearing taking on new challenges or activities for any of the above reasons or any similar reasons only keeps you from achieving the greatness you can achieve. By not challenging yourself with new tasks and challenges, you will be unable to grow as an individual because you will not learn any new skills to add your skill set. You will continue to excel and be productive in the skills you know, but you won’t expand your skill set to grow as an individual and possibly be even more productive and capable than you currently realize. This is a key reason why you won’t achieve the greatness you are capable of; you won’t even know if you’ll find a better skill you can use to achieve greater goals and accomplishments if you don’t take on new tasks and challenges.

Therefore, fear can stop you from achieving greatness because it hinders your growth as an individual and prevents you from learning more about yourself and increasing your skill set and abilities to handle various tasks and challenges. By being willing to overcome that fear and challenging yourself with new tasks and challenges that get you out of your “comfort zone,” you can grow as an individual and be able to achieve the greatness you can achieve.

Thank you for reading.

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Overcoming the “Dark Night of the Soul” Series – Part Three – How Making Mistakes Helps You To Achieve Greatness

Virtually everyone wants to achieve greatness, whether it is something monumental that changes the world or just being the best person he/she can be and positively impacting the lives of the people he/she cares about.  However, achieving greatness isn’t easy, and it doesn’t come overnight.  Learn how making mistakes can help you to achieve the greatness you are capable of.

You may be thinking, “How does making mistakes help me to achieve greatness?  Mistakes are usually considered bad or undesirable; how can that lead to greatness?”  Mistakes are often considered bad or undesirable by most, but most also realize that they are virtually unavoidable; we are only human, after all, and human beings do make mistakes from time to time- no one is perfect.

When mistakes do occur, you need to learn why the mistake occurred and how to prevent it or similar mistakes from happening in the future.  Then, the mistake is worthwhile and can help you to achieve greatness.  This is because you know what you need to do to avoid such a mistake, thereby leading you to perform the actions you need to take to achieve your best work and to achieve the greatness you are capable of.

Mistakes are truly bad or undesirable when we repeat the same or similar mistakes repeatedly, as we don’t learn from them.  As the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”  This saying refers to the fact that mistakes are not the bad or undesirable element most make it out to be when we learn why it is a mistake and how it occurred so that we can avoid it in the future.  This is how mistakes can help you to achieve greatness.

Therefore, you should not see mistakes as something bad or undesirable, so long as you learn from the experience the first time a mistake occurs so that you can keep the same or similar mistakes from occurring again.  Take note of what the mistake is and how it occurred so that you can learn how to take actions necessary to keep the mistake from occurring again.  By learning the actions and skills necessary to prevent such a mistake from occurring again in the future, you are taking positive actions that improve your skill set and help you to achieve the greatness you can achieve.

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Overcoming the “Dark Night of the Soul” Series –

Part Two – How Learning From Failures Can Boost Your Self-Esteem

This is Part Two of a Ten Part series on how to overcome the depressing “Dark Night of the Soul” that some writers and others experience.

Learning from failures can boost your self-esteem because you realize that you can rebound from tough challenges, plus learn valuable skills that can aid you in overcoming future tough challenges more easily.  Virtually everyone faces challenges in life; no one has it easy all the time, which means there will be things in your life that will not go as planned.  At times, it seems like the whole world is against you and nothing goes in your favor, nothing turns out as planned. 

Times like these are bound to bring down your self-esteem and make you question whether you can do high-quality work, achieve your goals, etc.  It is at times like these that you need to reflect upon past failures so that you recognize that you have gone through challenging periods before and have the capability and skill set needed to go through them again and be able to come out stronger than ever before.

That is the other key element you must learn when reflecting on your past failures: Learning from them so that you don’t make the same or similar mistakes in the future.  When you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world; on the contrary, you have a learning opportunity to learn what you did wrong or not as well as you could have, then learn how to do the situation better if the same or similar situation arises again. 

Learning from your past mistakes can show weaknesses in your skill set that you can strengthen over time through learning from the experience and gaining insight into what you can do better.  By learning what you can do better, you can feel more confident in handling the same or similar situations in the future, which can boost your self-esteem.

Therefore, you should not look upon making a mistake as the end of the world, and you should not allow it to bring down your self-esteem either.  Everyone makes mistakes; the key is learning from those mistakes so that you don’t make the same or similar ones in the future, plus you improve your skill set so that you can handle the same or similar situations with more confidence and ability in the future.  This will allow yourself to gain more self-esteem through analyzing and learning from your past mistakes so that you make fewer mistakes and achieve more in the future.