Friday, July 31, 2009

Think Success and reap Success but what if one fails



“In order to succeed, you have got to want and want very badly indeed, your well chosen objective. Your sheer tenacity will drive you to the top. The right sort of ambition, an ambition of a challenging nature, is truly a tremendous spur to achieve. The man who does not want badly enough to do a thing, will make any number of excuses for not doing it.” CSR

There has been in numerous number of articles encouraging its readers to work for success, but there are hardly a handful describing what to do when one fails. People do show reactions when they fail and in this post I have posted my analysis that I had drawn from my research on how people think about their failure.

I will take a leaf from Barack Obama speech to the Muslim world “ But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors.” to start on with what I want to advocate in this post. Lets analyze what are various scenarios and reactions.

Scenario 1: A person works hard burning midnight oil, but then no one knows what is in store for him, and he fails to achieve.
Reaction1: Some will go and introspect. Acceptance and introspection is required and these are positive traits. Once you have accepted your failure, your job of ‘turning the stones of failure to path for success’ is half done, but then what is the result of your introspection also matters a lot. Some would come forward claiming that they have tried everything and there is nothing that they can do more, but thinking in this manner closes all their avenues. One must realize that there is something that has not been addressed. Some would come forward blaming external factors like luck, environment, cast, creed etc. for their debacle, but then those are external and no one has any control on those and there is no guarantee that next time luck will be on your side. Everyone know there is an element of luck in any case, but if you introspect and found that only luck and all those that are external to you did not come at your disposal then I would classify you in the list of those who are cowards but claim publicly that their valor has been misinterpreted. Some would come forward with some good reasons for their failure, the reasons that they can justify and that they can work upon, the reasons that are internal to them like ‘I myself made a mess of it’, ‘I was confused about my emotions’, ‘ I failed to acknowledge the truth’, ‘ I need to work hard’. These reasons are internal to one and there can be many of this kind but what I want to advocate is that these are factors that we can change ourselves, but again your commitment to turn these to your benefit, depends solely on you. I have personally seen cases where people do come up with good introspection but fail in their commitment. Look at BJP debacle, prior to Lok Sabha Election, they lost in Delhi, Rajasthan and they knew very well that making terrorism and Hindutwa as their agenda is not accepted by masses but they committed the same mistake in Mandate 2009.

Scenario 2: A person does not work hard and knows he is going to fail. Reaction 2: This category of people will show some funny traits. Some will go and start projecting their health and aftermath of failure on their health so that they can gain some sympathy. Actually they fear the reactions of people and search for some desperate channel. In some cases I do accept that health played a major obstacle. Some will go publicly to claim that they have done enough but behind those closed doors and in dark lonely nights when they close their eyes they know they had not done enough. Some would come forward and say perhaps this was God’s wish, but no one has seen Him or know what He desires, we do need to have faith in Him but there is no point in closing ears and eyes to your own fault. Some too come forward claiming that job was not their cup of tea but I do believe that we can do everything we want to do, the two things we need are determination and commitment. My sincere advice to all these people is to start working hard and then even if you fail you do not feel like losing and can still hope to rise as Phoenix.

Success can be crafted from failure. There are issues with individual, which need to be addressed, there is no point in hiding those and there is no way to escape from those also. It is better that those issues are addressed as soon as possible. You all must have failed at some point in your life may it be in academics, love life, family, in fact everyone fails but the way we bounce back really matters. I do agree that there is no point in looking back to what has happened but one need to introspect past mistakes and work accordingly in present so that his future is shaped.