Wins and Lessons

You most probably are surrounded by people, who do everything perfectly from the first attempt. Job at the famous company straight after University, foreign language certificate after a few months of learning the language, driving licence from the first attempt, landing the first big customer a few days after announcing starting freelance life. Everyone is so great and seems to get everything so easily! Except you. Sounds familiar?

(photo by Maria Kostyleva)

In theory we all are very well aware that social networks are showing mostly the shiny side of things. However when we scroll through a social network (e.g LinkedIn) feed with yet another achievement posted by our friend, we tend to compare ourselves to them and quite often end up feeling miserable, not good enough, etc.

I read somewhere recently that there are no failures. There are only wins and lessons. If you didn't win, you most probably learnt a very valuable lesson. And this lesson might help you to grow faster than any easy win, although it hurts (or maybe because it hurts so much).

And here is the thing: most great achievements are hard, they often require many attempts, (re)evaluation of the strategy, long preparation, etc. So if you tried something and it didn't work out, it does not mean you're a failure. It most probably means it's a hard thing and you need to try harder. And eventually (not so far in the future!) we all will celebrate your achievement.