A few months ago, I took a huge gamble. It was gamble that would have changed my life if it worked. It was a business gamble that required a whole lot of money – a whole lot of money I technically didn’t have and probably shouldn’t have been spending. But I figured since this gamble was for my career and could change my life in ways I never knew possible, it was worth it.
Boy was I wrong. That gamble changed my life alright, but it changed my life so I could end up in the poor house. Thats right. Rather than this career gamble making money like I thought it would, it ended up draining my account to the point that I didn’t know how I was gonna pay rent that month. Suddenly, I wasn’t living life terrifically. I was scrambling to do anything I could to keep a roof over my head. It was a horrible a time my husband and I dealt with. We hustled like you wouldn’t believe. Both of us took on any odd job we could find, resorted to eating only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and completely drained our savings account just so we could avoid eviction. When we finally raised enough money to pay off the rent, we got handed a late fee, but we paid it off nonetheless.
In the days following that, we felt defeated as we struggled to make a comeback after that huge hit. It was embarrassing – an embarrassment we kept to ourselves. How could we share our struggle to live while the people surrounding us were getting raises at their jobs, traveling to India, buying houses. etc. Meanwhile, we couldn’t even manage to pay our bills while keeping our savings in tact. And every day, I looked at the savings account that was once full and was now drained – I felt defeated.
And each time we passed up the opportunity to hang out with friends at the bar so we could replenish our savings, we felt defeated. I felt like a major failure because it was my fault we were in the predicament in the first place. If my career gamble hadn’t failed, we wouldn’t have had to scramble to find money for rent or hustle to replenish from savings.
Needless to say, I felt like a failure every day my balance was less than $1,000 which made it difficult to feel uplifted to save again. While I knew until I started thinking positively saving would be difficult, it felt like it was next to impossible since I screwed up so badly. Hell, with a screw up that bad It was a miracle we were able to pull rent together at all.
And with that thought I realized I was indeed a success. The day my husband and I made that late rent payment, we made a miracle happen. Though we didn’t realize it, we didn’t just succumb to failure and defeat. We overcame it the moment we hustled our way to make that payment. Sure it was a predicament that I put us in, but we made it! Yet for the longest time all I saw was our failure while we struggled.
And that’s the problem with society and all of those who are failing at life. You choose to see the failure instead of the success in life. It’s about time we start celebrating every time we made it even though it may be a minuscule victory. It’s a still a small victory nonetheless. It’s the quickest way to go from failing at life to big time success.
So celebrate the day you paid the electric bill right before they cut you off.
Celebrate the moment you salvaged the burnt chicken you made for your family and managed to turn it into a delicious meal.
Celebrate the time you you made it through your very first Zumba class even though you screwed up every routine.
Celebrate the day you managed to clean your mess of a home up in less than 20 minutes when preparing for last minute unexpected guests.
Rejoice the moment you filed your taxes even if you had to file an extension.
Be proud of yourself for asking your boss for a raise even if you didn’t get it. (and then promptly plan your exit strategy.)
Even if you’ve been unemployed for 2 years, celebrate that you made it through those two years still fighting the strong fight as you tried to make ends meet.
Go from failure to success with this easy trick. Click To TweetAnd even if you the struggle is real, celebrate the fact that you woke up another day so you can do whatever you can to make it.
The bottom line is you are never failing at life. Sure you may not be where you want to be. And sure your life may be filled with more failures than you’d like. But never forget that your life is filled with many more successes than failures. Remember that is certainly the easiest way to go from failure to success instantly.
And once you start celebrating all those times you made it and the small successes, you’ll soon realize you were never truly failing at life.
Do you have trouble celebrating the times you “made it”? Have you ever felt like you were a complete failure?
TERRIfic Quip: You aren’t failing at life until the day you choose to stop living.
