Empowered by my Failures
Oprah Winfrey, a failure?
Image from erictippetts.com
Empowered by Failures
I have made mistakes. I have had failures. Lots of failures. Sometimes, I did the same thing again and it still failed! A bit like the guy betting on replays of the Melbourne Cup, just in case the favourite racehorse got up this time. Let’s face it, some people take a while to “get it” and I’m probably one of those who need to do it the hard way. But the hard way sometimes really cements the lessons of your #failures for you.
How was I empowered by my failures?
Let’s look at some of my failures. I had a marriage breakdown. Why? Because I was busy being a guy, a provider and a worker, but not very good at being a communicator, husband or father.
What did I learn from my failures?
There are some things that need to be put first in life, and family is one of them. Sure, I needed to provide for my family, but I needed to make sure their happiness was in place before I tried to buy “stuff” for them. What they wanted was my love, my company, my attention, not my “stuff”!
Another of my failures was in not doing enough homework on some things before jumping in. I was impulsive and would make decisions on the spot, because I thought that fast decision-making and “being decisive” was the way to be. It is, but only if you know what you are talking about and making decisions on. For everything else, do the homework!
What did I learn from my failures?
Take time. Just like sand takes time to filter through an hourglass, so does information take time to filter through my mind. Give it the time it needs to process the information and the homework on the question at hand, and only then, make the decision.
Many people look to successful people for how to become successful. The wise people also look at what the #failures have to teach us. The light bulb wasn’t invented at the first experiment. Every failure was documented and used as a stepping stone til finally, success came, after all those failures, those learning experiences.
Thomas Edison – a prolific failure!
Image from madeinindia.net.au
There is so much that I have learnt from failures over the years. What I learnt when sitting back, many years later, was that I had developed a process that while ever I used it, worked for me, and made life good. When I applied my life to a certain set of principles, took notice of what my intuition was telling me and acted from my heart with integrity, life was good.
I distilled this process over time, before I began to teach it. The first programs went to corporations and they paid huge sums of money for it. As I taught it, I also learnt more about it and when it evolved into my first public program, “The Executive Mastermind Program”, it was an amazing program. I delivered it in four weekend workshops over a year, with huge amounts of support in between the workshops. That was because for information to be retained, the mind and body need to continually integrate it and that was how we did it. Accelerated Learning was the technique, the strategy that became famous for teaching people a new language in a few days… I harnessed Accelerated Learning and used some NLP strategies and techniques to anchor it, and the lives of many people changed.
It was limited though and I over stretched myself, trying to do too much for too many. Another of my failures. I pulled back and went a little off course, veering off into financial planning for a time but that was also a mistake.
What did I learn from my failures?
Stay true. Listen to my heart and stay in integrity. Hmmm. Sounds familiar. So I’m back on track now, writing and teaching, and working with my program. It works every time.
You can have it too. It’s a program that has a number of amazing features. When you look at these features, you can see why it would keep me, or you, on track:
- A daily personal empowerment program, a page of motivational pep talk on a self development topic of value. Each month for 3 months, the topic comes back in a little more depth to enhance and reinforce the learning, teaching me all about what is important for me and how to be better at being me.
- A priority to-do list with check boxes for completion status
- A problem solving program and process
- A goal setting program, with action steps towards my #1 goal each day
- A gratitude journal, to remind me of the wonderful things I already have in my life
- A daily affirmation, to lock in what I desire from my life
- Learning how to be aware of what I learnt from what happened to me today
- Recording a ‘high’ and ‘low’ point of the day, to make me aware of mood shifts and my attitude and behaviour when things in my day change
- A cashflow program, for recording my earning and spending and increasing my financial habits awareness
- A comment on my major achievement for the day, a little celebration
- A journal section with topics to discuss and explore, as well as my own personal journaling on thoughts about my day.
A few minutes morning and evening is all this program takes, but when I developed the first crude version of it back in 1992, it turned my then miserable life around on a sixpence!
What did I learn from my success program, inspired by my failures?
Awareness of my personality. I learnt that there was a lot more going on around me than I thought. Looking at my mood shifts, I realised I was jumping between sub-personalities! When I mastered that, it was a game-changer.
Awareness of others. As my awareness increased, I learnt to listen to and observe others more closely. I was no longer swept along in the tide of humanity; I was an observer, choosing with discernment where I wanted to be.
Awareness of my finances. No more reaching for my wallet to realise I’d already spent that note I thought I had. I became conscious of my spending and many other habits that previously I had left on auto-pilot.
Awareness of my lessons. What good is an experience if it doesn’t teach us something? Each day I’d record what I learnt from my successes and failures and found I was sitting on a wealth of valuable experiences, that I had been glossing over and forgetting.
Awareness of my communications. Failure in communications is ripping the world apart and it was tearing mine apart too. When I became aware of the power of my words, what I said to me internally, and what I said to others, I took back control of my life.
Awareness of my intuition. Perhaps my greatest failures were from not listening to my intuition screaming at me at critical moments. Learning to discern between negative mind chatter and genuine intuitive processing and inspiration has possibly been the most powerful of all for me. Intuition taps into a global network of incredible resources, information and a wealth of ideas and inspiration that a single human mind could not process, but it can access it! The greatest minds have acknowledged it – Einstein and the American Founding Fathers to name a few. Allowing the messages to come to me and recognising their value has been phenomenal – and averted many failures too!
How can you gain empowerment from my failures?
This program is available to you also. The work of putting it together has been done. Now you can download it and plug it into your life. In a few minutes, morning and evening, you can start to change your life too! I found that over a 90 day period, I experienced life changing results from the habits I broke or changed and the new habits I formed and integrated into my life. Over those 90 days, my awareness exploded; I found myself observing events, nuances and inferences from situations that had previously slipped by me. It was like looking at my life as a black and white pencil sketch, then suddenly making it a full colour photo, with the richness of the new observations filling in the colours.
Open up to a whole new world!
Image from wonderwoman.intoday.in
Is 90 days of this life change program all that is necessary?
If some is good, maybe more is better. Why does a butcher sharpen his knives continually? Because he needs to have them sharp all the time. Just as our minds and our intuition need to be continually honed to work best, I find that by continuing with my life change program each day, I am both continually refreshing myself with these habits, changing any that do not serve me, and keeping focussed on my important goals.
How can you have this program in your life?
If you have gained a benefit from learning about my failures and how I turned them to my benefit, please reblog and share this post with your friends, family and associates. Share your journey with them. Everyone deserves an opportunity to turn their failures and mistakes into golden opportunities and that’s what this is! Pay it forward!
Til next time, fair winds and full sails.
Ray Jamieson
Please also refer to my other posts on Empowerment:
Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment
Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence
What would an empowered man do?