(ThyBlackMan.com) Are you a failure? How do you know? Some of you are failures and you won’t admit it because you are in denial. Others are heading towards failure. Some others are failures and they don’t even know it. You believe you are succeeding but really you are not. You have continued to move and lower the bar, adjusting it to camouflage your failures. And finally, others are thinking they are failures when actually they are not. Failure, you see, has everything to do with the definition you allow, believe, accept and absorb.
Who defines what “failure” is for you? If you let others define you as a success or failure, you are letting others define who you are, what you can do and what you will do. But it is not likely they are 100% correct about your potential, your knowledge, what decisions you will make and who will come across your path to help you avoid failure.
NEVER LET OTHER PEOPLE DEFINE SUCCESS FOR YOU
Who are you listening to? Be careful because people who THINK they cannot achieve something are the very people who will discourage you and make you feel like you can’t either. Notice I said people who “THINK” they cannot achieve. I say this because many of them are wrong about themselves and their potential. They do not believe in themselves and maybe they were never taught to. And verses like “with God all things are possible” never come to their minds. So they trust in others to define their value their potential and their outcome. They even trust in others to take care of them.
Case in point, when the federal government shut down a short time ago, within 2 weeks and one paycheck many government employees were standing in soup kitchen lines as they waited for boxes of food. Two weeks and one check? Really? Those were the people who believed in their jobs more than themselves and their God-given gifts, talents, abilities. Those were the people who learned nothing from the ants, the bee hive, the squirrel – all who store up, all who stay prepared. And while the focus was on the government shutdown, hardly anybody spoke about the lessons that employees should have learned from it.
SUCCESS SHOULD BE DEFINED BY YOU AND YOUR CREATOR, BASED ON YOUR PURPOSE, PLAN AND POTENTIAL
The good news, as I heard a wise man recently say, is that failure is not final. Failure can often be reversed. And the great news is that it is not likely you are or will be a failure overall in life. Failing at some things does not make you a failure overall in life. Ironically failure is not defined by whether or not to complete the task or reach the goal as much as you might think. Failure begins in the mind. At the moment you stop believing you can do something, you have failed. At that moment you give up. At that moment you have failed.
I see people all the time who open multiple businesses. Why? In hopes that something will work instead of making one or two of them work. Hope is good but the confidence and belief that you can make things happen is much, much better. I see people come close to success then sabotage their own efforts. Why? Because subconsciously they do not believe incredibly good things can happen to them. I have corrected people a hundred times who say “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”. I ask them what if it is true? Did they ever think about that? Nope.
THE MOMENT YOU STOP BELIEVING YOU CAN DO IT IS THE MOMENT YOU FAIL
You have to believe that good things can happen to you. You have to do good things for others so you will deserve good things to come back to you. Call it karma, reaping and sowing, the boomerang affect or whatever you like. Case in point, I see so many people in need, and not just homeless people. People with jobs and cars and homes. But I also look at their levels of giving and once I do, I see why they are always in need.
You were created to succeed, not to fail. But what does it look like in your life when you succeed? Have you even taken the time to define it? Will you recognize when you succeed, when you come close to succeeding or when you are stuck or going backwards? If you don’t “plug in” to the Creator who empowers you not to fail (as I also heard a wise man say recently), I am saying you can expect to lose. It was meant to be that way. You can win but seldom do the most successful people win all by themselves. So plug in, and I mean sincerely plug in, not just pretending for a minute when you want something. God is not stupid and you should not be either in your approach. You have gifts and abilities you are not even aware of but they have to be unlocked and He has the key – you do not.
REAL SUCCESS IS NEVER ACHIEVED ALONE AND NOT BASED ON HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE
You can achieve practically anything, but only those things you should achieve – not just whatever you want. For example, don’t expect to be the top drug dealer in the country. You cannot achieve the greatest good things by yourself. You can do all things through CHRIST, not just through yourself. With God all things are possible, not just because you want them and not by yourself.
None of us will be successful in everything. But the goal should be to be successful in most things, certainly in the things that matter most. Family, relationships, finances, spiritual enlightenment and the journey, career, health, safety and being a great example for those around you are critical.
So don’t be so impressed with the knowledge of people like Zig Ziglar, Robert Kiyosaki, Les Brown, Tony Robins and even some motivational speakers masquerading as church leaders. They have simply learned and repackaged the Biblical principles of success and offer them for sale. And in most cases, they have not written their books because they used ghost writers to write for them. Open your mind, wake up your spirit and regroup. Failure can stop whenever you choose, if you dare.
Staff Writer; Trevo Craw
