“What’s the use?” Jessie said to me. “I’ve tried many times to accomplish great things. No matter what I do or how hard I work, I end up failing.”

Jessie is only an example of people who feel hopeless. They know what they want to do, but they still don’t accomplish what they desire.

This is Peter Ng. Welcome to my motivational series ‘Awakening the Power within You’ – Living is Learning.

There is no one way we can explain all failures, but the worst that could ever happen to anyone is to reach the place of hopelessness. “I’ve tried before, and I failed.” she said, and saw no point in trying again. She is totally discouraged!

When we fail – and we will – that doesn’t mean we are failures. It means we failed one time in one thing. It means we didn’t do everything right. That doesn’t make us a failure.

I was watching a cartoon on Kids Central titled Ginger, and one remark that caught my attention was “Along the way (in life), we will have knocks and falls, bruises, and stripes, but that is to tell us that we are living a life.” That’s very true. Imagine life is always smooth, no hardship, no turmoil, no arguments, no excitement, no challenges, no sense of achievement and accomplishment – guess what will happen to all of us – life will be boring, we will become lazy, and become very robotic. As humans, we need the challenges, the achievements, the excitements, and senses of accomplishments.

All of us fall, but when we’re encouraged, we get back up and try again. If we’re not encouraged, we tend to stay down or at least wait a long, long time before trying to get up again. It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up!

Discouragement destroys hope. Failure easily leads to more failure. My advice for people who have failed is “Don’t focus on the outcome or the result of your action. Go back to your attitude and your thought processes.” There are people I know that were afraid they would fail right from the beginning. What we fear comes upon us. We allow discouraging, disheartening thoughts to fill our minds.

Whatever we focus on, we become. If we focus on the negative things in our lives, we become negative people. Everything, including our conversation, becomes negative. We soon lose our joy and live miserable lives – and it all started with our own thinking. If we focus on what we’re not or what we haven’t accomplished, we are allowing negativity to obstruct the achieving of our potentials.

Our mind had to change before our lives could change. We don’t have to accept every thought that falls into our minds. We can cast down wrong ones and replace them with right ones. Much of our thinking is habitual. If we regularly think good things, positive thoughts become natural. To think in the right way takes practice, and it is not always easy, nor does it feel natural for us to focus only on the good.

Too many people want to live victorious lives, but they don’t want to put in the effort or to pay the price. If you don’t like your life, but you won’t make the effort to change, you may have a weigh-down mentality.

Our success is not a one-time, big event – it is a process. As we move ahead little by little, it makes us savor every victory, and we can remain in a constant state of rejoicing. We always have new horizons to reach for, and that makes our journey exciting. Here’s the INK to live life to your greatest potential:
• Infrastructure – Having a desire without infrastructure is similar to building a building without foundation. Building a solid foundation needs resources, plan, strategies, understanding the ground (consumer-behavior, economic-reality, market influences, etc).
• Namby-Pamby – as in Oxford dictionary means lacking courage or vigor; feeble. Living a life with constant fears prevents living your imagination into reality.
• Knowledge – Learning is a price to pay for success. Are you willing to put in the time, effort, money, a bit of personal sacrifice to learn the rope of the trade?

Enthusiasm and persistence can make an average person superior; indifference and lethargy can make a superior person average. Living is learning – everyday of our lives!