{"id":4104,"date":"2017-07-09T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=4104"},"modified":"2017-06-10T22:27:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-11T03:27:21","slug":"choose-not-to-focus-on-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=4104","title":{"rendered":"Choose Not to Focus on Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

One More Year of Choices<\/em><\/p>\n

By Barbara Dahlgren<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Guess what? Everyone fails from time to time. Failure is not fatal. Failure is not final. Failure is not the end of the world. We can\u2019t afford for mistakes or set-backs to make us feel like failures. Failure, if not kept in proper perspective, can make us feel like giving up.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a little \u201cGuess Who” game.\u201d Can you guess the name of the person one might think is a failure?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who performed badly in almost all of his high school courses and flunked his college entrance exams?<\/p>\n

A: Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who struck out 1330 times during his baseball career?<\/p>\n

A: Babe Ruth (professional baseball player)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who failed the sixth grade and lost every public office he ran for, except one?<\/p>\n

A: Winston Churchill (Prime Minister of U.K.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Whose first three automobile companies failed?<\/p>\n

A: Henry Ford (industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who was barely able to read or write at age ten, was yanked out of school, and taught by a tutor who quit in disgust?<\/p>\n

A: Pablo Picasso (painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, poet, playwright)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who was fired from her television reporting job because she wasn\u2019t \u201cfit to be on screen?\u201d<\/p>\n

A: Oprah Winfrey (queen of television talk shows)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who was fired from the Kansas City Star in 1919 because he \u201clacked imagination and had no good ideas?\u201d<\/p>\n

A: Walt Disney (entrepreneur, animator)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Whose teacher called him a \u201chopeless dunce?\u201d<\/p>\n

A: Beethoven (composer)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who made a screen test and the evaluator wrote that he \u201ccan\u2019t sing, can\u2019t act, slightly bald, can dance a little?\u201d<\/p>\n

A: Fred Astaire (famous dancer, singer, actor, choreographer)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who tried 200 unsuccessful vaccines for polio before finding the one that worked?<\/p>\n

A: Jonas Salk (medical researcher, virologist)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: After a performance at the Grand Ole Opry, who was told he was better off driving a truck than singing?<\/p>\n

A: Elvis Presley (singer, actor)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who started a lot of businesses which all failed and lost several elections for public office?<\/p>\n

A: Abraham Lincoln (president of the United States)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who was rejected by the California School of Theater, Film, and Television three times?<\/p>\n

A: Steven Spielberg (director)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who was cut from his high school basketball team?<\/p>\n

A: Michael Jordan (professional basketball player)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who graduated 42 in a class of 43?<\/p>\n

A: Napoleon Bonaparte (military and political leader)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: Who had 10,000 failed experiments before figuring out how to work the light bulb?<\/p>\n

A: Thomas Edison (inventor)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thomas Edison said he didn\u2019t consider those experiments failures; he considered them education. \u201cI know 10,000 things that don\u2019t work.\u201d There are some things that can only be learned by failure.<\/p>\n

Yes, failure hurts, but everyone fails at something. Smart people learn from their failures and move on. That\u2019s what makes the difference. We can\u2019t afford to let other people\u2019s opinions of us determine what we will become. After all, it\u2019s God\u2019s opinion of us that really matters and He thinks we\u2019re pretty special. So we can\u2019t let failures become excuses to give up and stop trying. Failures are setbacks. Setbacks are learning experiences.<\/p>\n

Failure can actually make us work harder and become more determined to succeed. It can help us refocus our energies or change direction. A little failure in our lives helps us to be sympathetic towards others and not so judgmental. Failure helps us rely on God.<\/p>\n

Consider this\u2026 God doesn\u2019t just want us to be observers in the game of life. He wants us to get in there and give it our all, do it with all our might. (Ecclesiastes 9:10) God is all about participation and doing our best. When we stumble, God wants us to get up and finish the race.<\/p>\n

Success isn\u2019t always winning; failure isn\u2019t always losing. There is no failure unless we decide not to try. It\u2019s as simple as that!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suggestions for practicing this choice\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone fails, but how we handle failure determines if we will be bitter or better. Determine to learn from your mistakes, not repeat them.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t blame others for your mistakes. Accept responsibility. Make changes. Move on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing at all. Don\u2019t let failure keep you from doing stuff.<\/p>\n

When a certain process isn\u2019t working for you then reframe, revise, and refocus. Make evaluations to determine how to proceed. That\u2019s what Edison had to do every time his light bulb experiment didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

Always remember God is here for you. When we fall down, He can help us get back up. If we don\u2019t have the strength to get up, He will lift us up if we ask Him for help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One More Year of Choices By Barbara Dahlgren\u00a0 Guess what? Everyone fails from time to time. Failure is not fatal. Failure is not final. Failure is not the end of the world. We can\u2019t afford for mistakes or set-backs to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}