New Week, New Opportunities, New You

May 9, 2022

I have had that graphic sitting on my desktop for weeks and it just felt like it was time to use it. I think it is important to be about to put the past behind you, no matter what happened then, and move on and seize the new opportunities of today and the rest of this week.

Perhaps another graphic that I just got will help with that…

Moving on from the past often involves learning from our mistake or failures. Rather than letting them drag us down, we should take the time to learn from them and use them to help us adjust our path forward. One gains nothing from beating oneself up over past poor decisions or actions; however, one gains wisdom by learning from them. In fact, some of the wisest and most successful people in history were people who failed often but learned from those failures.

It is often overlooked that a key component of failure is the fact that an attempt was made in the first place. Someone tried. They may have failed, but they tried. Too many never even try, often out of a fear of failure.  Don’t allow yourself to become trapped in the sad world of “coulda, woulda, shoulda”.

It’s a new week. There are new opportunities for you. Get out there and try. Learn from your failures and move on.

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Posted by Norm Werner

If you haven’t had failures, you haven’t been trying hard enough.

September 15, 2016

Recently this little quote appeared on the Jack’s Winning Words blog – “Failure is temporary.  Move quickly beyond it.” (Unknown)  Jack went on to write: No one’s a success 100% of the time.  We are made better by our failures.  The Bible tells the story of Job, a man who had all kinds of bad luck.  His friends told him to curse God and die.  Job responded, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”  And, in the end, God rewarded that trust.

failuresFailures are a part of life and a key to learning and the building of knowledge and eventually the accumulation of wisdom. Some people experience fewer failures than others, sometimes because they are too afraid of failure to even try. Others may work extra hard at planning to avoid failures, thus limiting themselves to the number of things that they try. Still others go through life blissfully failing at almost everything they try, yet learning nothing from those experiences. Failures happen – move quickly beyond it

The advice in the post title and in today’s quote from Jack’s blog go hand-in-hand. If you aren’t experiencing failures, you probably aren’t trying hard enough or often enough and if you are failing, then learn from those experiences and move on. Don’t dwell to long on them and don’t beat yourself up for the failure. Live and learn is another little tidbit of advice that we often hear growing up. Perhaps it should be modified to read Live, fail and learn. That is not to say that you should plan to fail, just that failures happen – move quickly beyond it.

There is a famous quote about failure by Thomas Edison – “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Life is like that a lot. You find ways that just don’t work. Maybe it is an approach towards someone that you’d like to befriend or to have a date with,  and you get rejected. You just found a way that won’t work. That doesn’t meanfailure2 that you can never be friends or that you will never get that date. Learn from that failure and move quickly beyond it.

Sometimes in life you come to real dead ends, places where there is nothing else to try or no place to advance. Not every situation in life has a solution or alternative approach that results in a positive outcome. The important thing in those cases is to recognize the futility of continuing on your current path and deciding to choose a different path, a different goal or perhaps a different job or life pursuit. As important as dealing with failure-3failures is dealing with dead ends and learning to move quickly beyond it.

Perhaps we all can learn something from Job and reinforce our belief and trust in God’s plan for us each time we fail. I have had many real estate clients over the years who found “the perfect house”, only to lose it to another buyer. Some were devastated by the failure of their offer, but others were able to say “it was not meant to be” and to move quickly beyond it.

So, keep in mind today and every day that you will experience failures; you should try to view each one as a learning experiences and move quickly beyond it.

Have a great. Try lots of things. Learn lots of things. Maybe, even have a few successes along the way.

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Posted by Norm Werner

It’s just a boo-boo; you’ll live…

January 14, 2016

“Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo.”  (John Sinclair) – as seen recently on the Jack’s Winning Words blog.

I really like that little saying because it is such an appropriate way to think about the failures and setbacks in our lives. The analogy holds up to a good deal of thought, too. Usually the event that causes a bruise involves something that causes pain first – a bump or a fall or running into something. It hurts at that instance and then your body may turn the site of the bump it into a bruise. The bruise still hurts, if you poke at it; but over time it heals and goes away. Of course, if the incident was traumatic enough to have broken or cut the skin, you may also end up with a scar instead of just a bruise. Scars are more like tattoos: they stay with you for a long time, but they, too, fade away over time. Some failures in life may leave scars, too.

Remember when you were little and fell off your bike or ran into the door while trying to mother with childrun away playing tag. It hurt; but, your mom kissed it and told you it was just a boo-boo and that you’d be OK – you’d live. Life’s failure are much the same, only mom isn’t there anymore. If you’re lucky you have a life partner who can kiss you and tell you that it’s just a boo-boo and that you’ll live. That failure is just a bruise (primarily to your ego) it’s not a tattoo. It may take a while for the bruise to heal and for you to forget about it, but it will heal eventually and you will forget and move on with life.

There are things that can tattoo you for life and I suppose that they might be called failures; although most of them are called crimes. Having a criminal record, especially for the more heinous crimes definitely act like tattoos on those who commitment. The record follows them around and some crimes involving sex or children or both result in those tattoos being registered in databases that all in the public can see. The exceptions usually involve juvenile offenders whose youthful criminal records are expunged when they turn 21. It’s sort of like having that tattoo removed through laser surgery.

Other things that we experience may causes bruises in our lives. The loss of a loved one, remorsefulrejection by someone that we hoped would be a loved one, loss of a job, divorce and more can all cause bruises. All of those bruises heal over time, though some require quite a bit longer than others.

There is a corollary saying that also rings true – “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” You may not think that the healing of that latest life bruise will make you stronger; but, you will learn something from it, you will know better the next time and you may be able to avoid getting bruised again by the same thing or person. If you develop the ability to look at life’s failures and setbacks as temporary bruises, it will make life much less stressful or depressing when you have those failures.

If you don’t have a loved one to turn to for a kiss and the reassurance that everything will be OK – that you’ll live; turn to the One who is always there for every boo-boo in life, the One who will never judge you or abandon you; the One to whom you can and will turn to even in the final moment of your life – embrace God and let Him kiss your boo-boo and make it better. In fact, even if your mom is still there, or you do have a loved one that you share your life with; taking your boo-boos and bruises to God in prayer will speed the healing. As you get older you may get a bit cynical about the medicinal impact of mom’s kisses, but you should never lose faith in the healing power of God.

If you must get a tattoo, get a small cross tattooed somewhere where you can look at it when yo need to. Then, in those times when something has just happened that you know is going to leave a bruise WWJDor maybe even a scar; you can look at that tattoo and say out loud, “this is the only thing that is permanent in my life.” That will start the healing process. If you really don’t want a tattoo, get one of those bracelets that have WWJD engraved or printed on them and wear that; because what Jesus would do is kiss your boo-boo and make it better.

It’s just a boo-boo: you’ll live and you’ll be stronger for it. Have a great day.

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Posted by Norm Werner