Finding Encouragement in Discouraging Situations

Just as with anything else you put your mind to, it’s inevitable that you’ll experience ups and downs as you become more confident in social situations.  Perhaps one day, you may be a social animal, while the next you might feel like hiding.  While the ups can be very gratifying, the downs can be very upsetting and discouraging.  It is important as you venture toward a more social life that you learn to let these negative experiences roll off your back. 

Most likely people have told you “Just shrug it off” many times in the past, never explaining how one can simply drop failure and not dwell on it.  In fact, it may very well be impossible to do so.  If there were no such thing as failure however, there would be no need to “shrug it off.”   A world without both success and failure couldn’t exist, could it?

That answer to that question depends on how you choose to look at any given situation.  Lets assume for a seconds that we are running a lemonade stand.  Yesterday our goal was to make $10, yet we only made $8.  In this case we can choose to consider the day a failure, or choose to look at the success we did have during the day.  So perhaps the day before we had only made $5.  Perhaps during the day we discovered a method of enticing new customers.  Perhaps we improved the flavor of the lemonade.  Despite not meeting our goal, we still had success, and the day was not a failure.  Instead of shrugging off your failure, you turn it into a success.

Having the ability to see your success even when you fail to meet a goal is a very powerful tool.  This gives you the empowerment to transcend the negative effects of failure and to remain positive. You will feel more energetic and capable of accomplishing your other goals.  In addition to all of this you can look deeper and learn how you can better set your goals. I will write more about this in the coming days.

On a Personal Note

I have recently applied these principles myself.  I had set a goal for myself to write a minimum of 1 blog post per day. During the past week, I found that to be impossible.  I would get half way through a post before drawing a complete blank.  I’d save the post and move on to another idea.  No matter what I was writing, I would get about half way though the post, and get stuck.  I didn’t let it discourage me though.  I worried a bit about the effects not posting might have on my readers, but didn’t focus on my inability to complete a post.  Instead I looked at the fact that with each post I started to write, I was half a post closer to another great post for my readers.  In addition those posts will get more review, and consideration than my posts normally would leading to overall better articles.  So in the end despite the fact I couldn’t manage to give you, my readers, something to read last week, I was still successful.  When I am able to finish those posts, you will be reading posts that have received much more thought and time than most of my writing.