When I first started my Digital Marketing Agency (EZMetrics, LLC) I would take every shot or opportunity presented to me; I still do. However, I learned very quickly that when taking every shot or opportunity, I would miss a lot of them. Big grand ideas would be crushed by the weight of failure and defeat; before I knew it, I felt like I had just gone 5 rounds with Mike Tyson.
So, I added a screensaver and lock screen to my laptop that said, “Unwilling to Quit”. It was my daily reminder that I, Jacob Salem, am Unwilling to Quit no matter how many times I fail.
One major key to success is failure. When thinking about success, it is easy to gloss over the numerous failures that you have had to overcome in order to get you where you are today. The more you fail, the more you begin to learn about yourself, your support system, and the flaws within your business.
We will all fail at something in our life at some point. We all have had a bad day that led us to make decisions that could have been altered, but that does not make everything a failure. It does not matter how many times you fail, inevitably, the feeling of worthlessness comes creeping up in the back of your mind. Please, let me remind you that you are not a failure. You are an expert, and you have something special inside of you that God wants to bring to fruition, but He cannot do it without your work, your effort, and more importantly, your commitment to push through your challenges and setbacks.
Zig Ziglar said it best when he said, “Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night. Today is a brand new day…and it’s yours.” ~ Zig Ziglar
Through failure, you begin to learn. Failure by design is meant to give you skills to progress you to the next level.
First, you learn about yourself. When you feel defeated, you may begin to suppress your feelings, and try to immediately rebuild. It is important to understand the effects that failure can have on your emotions. It is crucial that you reflect on your failures so you can learn from them.
One of the largest challenges that entrepreneurs face is not that they don’t have the ability to succeed, but they ignore the failures that they will face. Failure will pave the way to you becoming successful.
You will need to have a strong support system to rely on as you begin to fail. It is important that you have people you trust, that will encourage you to get back up and try again. This support system can vary, this may be a family member, long time friend, or a mentor. Continue to pour into others for support as you go through hard times within your life or business.
Lastly, when you fail, you will find weaknesses within your business. Failures will open your eyes to areas that you need to improve on. It does not matter where you currently are in your life, you have to continue to try new things. You cannot stay stagnant in hopes to never fail. The key to success is simple, learn to embrace and learn from failures to improve as a whole.
“Fail early, Fail Often, Fail Forward.” ~ Will Smith
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