“FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION”, IS FAKE NEWS

How many times have you been told “failure is not an option” by someone living with real success and happiness?

5 min readDec 14, 2019

The dream chasers make statements like “Failure is not an option” the dream achievers say “Failure will happen Giving Up is not an option” Success is not the result of brute force. Succeeding over the long term has far more to do with stepping back and subtracting distractions, rather than voraciously pushing forward. Success is being able to see failure as a process of success and use it as a tool for gaining perspective. So why do we Give Up on something that seemed so important at one time?

Here are the real reasons people give up on their goals far too early:

1. They want the outcome more than they want to grow.

How many people do you know that speak often of something prestigious they want to be, and yet never actually take the necessary steps in order to become that very thing?

People love to fall in love with the idea of something grand. We love the thought of being a famous tech entrepreneur, far more than we love sitting in a dark room for years on end learning how to code. And what happens when that first roadblock is reached? Failure is assumed and the whole path is given up entirely. Because knowledge and mastery over a skill wasn’t the driving force — the shiny reward at the end was.

2. They care too much about what people think.

Sabotage.

It’s what people do to avoid the fear of rejection. You see, by sabotaging yourself, you can control the failure ahead of time. You can prepare for it. You can make up a whole story about how it wasn’t your fault. And all of that is much safer than putting it all on the line and giving the world a front row seat.

People give up because they fear what other people will think if they fail.

3. They mistake failure for the truth.

The best goal-achievers know that failure is nothing more than a lesson in disguise. In fact, a quote I live by is, “Never mistakes, always lessons, forever masters.” This is the motto for the path of true mastery.

Those that give up on their goals, however, treat failure as a label. “I’ve failed,” they repeat to themselves over and over, entirely missing the opportunity right in front of their eyes.

It’s only a failure if you see it that way. To everyone else succeeding, it’s nothing more than a hard-earned lesson.

4. They would rather Give Up then Go Around.

Find me one company that knew exactly what it was going to be in every way, shape, and form from the onset. It doesn’t exist.

That’s because companies, brands, ideas, and visions are not stationary ships. They are not constructed at a table in advance and then brought to life in exact form. They evolve over time, they grow, they gather feedback and adjust.

People who give up on their goals stay entirely too attached to what their vision was at the onset, unwilling to compromise with the new information their journey has provided. They would rather chalk it all up as a failed venture than take what they’ve learned along the way, apply it, and allow their idea to change shape.

In short: they can’t let go of their original expectation.

5. They do not have the discipline to see it live.

Everybody wants to be “the idea guy” (or girl). Everybody wants to walk into the room, listen for five minutes, shout out a crazy thought, and then drop the mic and leave. Very few people want to get in the weeds and bring that idea to life.

The reason is that being in the weeds is hard work. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to really, really know your stuff. You have to embrace the unknown every single day and push forward regardless of what challenges arise.

Most of the time, people give up on their goals because they lack discipline. They can’t get themselves to see something through to the end, regardless of how small the project. They haven’t yet cultivated the habits required to work not just on the days they feel inspired, but the days they feel uninspired as well.

6. They get focused on what someone else is living.

Entrepreneurs are notorious for wanting to build the company someone else is building successfully.

In an analogy, people give up eating what’s on their plate because they want what they see on someone else’s. Especially when what you’re looking at appears to be an easier-to-execute business model (which it rarely, if ever, is), it can be so easy to be distracted.

What this leads to is a lack of patience, which encourages a lack of discipline, which only speeds up the process of your giving up.

7. They don’t believe in themselves.

And of course, the most overused but brutally true cliché known to man: the fastest route to abandoning your goals is a lack of self-belief.

Mindset is everything, and without an ironclad and positive frame of mind, you will fail. That’s just the cold hard truth of it all. No matter how talented you are, no matter how many opportunities are handed to you on a silver platter, if you lack belief in yourself you will find a way to squander it all.

On the flip-side, those with a finely tuned mindset prepared to endure can and will see an idea through to its success. An average person with average skill sets but a persistent mind can make it past the finish line. A talented individual with no self-belief cannot.

Are you identifying with any of the above? Did you have a dream or a goal that at one time kept you up at night that now seems lost in the land of “I give up”? The good news is all of this can be overcome by developing positive habits. Seeing a problem is often needed to achieve success.

Success is yours You are WORTHY.