{"id":283,"date":"2016-09-28T10:04:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/?p=283"},"modified":"2016-09-27T14:48:54","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T18:48:54","slug":"failure-in-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/failure-in-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Failure in Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When I was between jobs and applying to new new ones daily, I maintained digital sticky notes on my laptop with info on my progress on each potential position, to stay organized.<\/p>\n

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Then, whenever a job didn\u2019t pan out, I\u2019d delete the note for that opportunity.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019d leave the blank spaces generated by the vanishing jobs to remind myself of the failure\u200a\u2014\u200athe more blank spots, the worse I\u2019d feel, and the harder I\u2019d work.<\/p>\n

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Then, one day, the notes spontaneously rearranged themselves, shuffling around randomly and moving out of order, obliterating the empty spaces.<\/p>\n

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I know it was a bug, and I should probably complain to Microsoft or something, but I also take it as a lesson: don\u2019t concentrate on failure. What\u2019s the point? Be aware of your failures, certainly, but for every success, a thousand failures may lie behind it \u2014and what good is it to tell yourself over and over that you\u2019ve failed in the meantime? It\u2019s only the success that matters. As long as there is still life in your body, no one can tell you that you won\u2019t get that success someday. So why not focus on that potential? That\u2019s my new plan, anyway.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Ok, postscript here\u200a\u2014\u200aI\u2019ll never do away with a focus on failure entirely, and I don\u2019t think I should. Failure is a great motivator, when harnessed correctly. Many innovators have used failure to spur them to greater heights.<\/p>\n

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But there\u2019s one important caveat in all that\u200a\u2014\u200anot one of them cared more about the failure than about the success. The failure was an propellant, urging them forward, but success was the reason they kept trudging day after wearying day, until finally they got what they wanted (usually).<\/p>\n

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Use failure, but don\u2019t let it consume you. If success is what you want more than anything, only success should consume you.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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When I was between jobs and applying to new new ones daily, I maintained digital sticky notes on my laptop with info on my progress on each potential position, to stay organized.   Then, whenever a job didn\u2019t pan out, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[191],"tags":[192,193,176],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lessons","tag-failure","tag-success","tag-working"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}