Most of the time, the difference between what makes something or someone a success instead of a failure is extremely narrow. You can walk a fine line between sheer success and utter failure. The thing is, the longer you walk that line, the larger the gap becomes. Let me give you a simple definition for both failure and success that you can easily use to assess what you are doing in your own life and help you get on the side of the line where you can get the most out of your existence.
What is failure?
Failure isn’t one occurrence. That would be an error. Failure is the accumulation of errors over a continuous period of time. For example, if you don’t clean your home one day, that’s not a failure. It might be an error. However, if you don’t clean your home 30 days in a row and your home is a big mess, then it’s no longer an error, but a failure. Usually, this is what causes people to experience failure whether it’s in their personal life or professional one. They repeat the same error day in and day out, and the sum of the errors just pile on until it’s a complete failure. You could eat junk food one day, but if you eat it every single day, then you suffer the consequences of such continuous errors with poor health and poor body image. What about if you put off doing a task for one day? What if you put it off every single day? I see this all too often in my line of work, where the accumulation of errors builds into failure, which then builds into disaster! Think about certain bad decisions or choices that you have been making in your life lately. Make the promise to yourself right now not to repeat this every day. One trait that I have noticed with high achievers, is that they are able to correct an error extremely quickly. If you want a chance to succeed, you need to learn from your errors and correct them FAST. The quicker you learn from your errors and avoid repeating them, the better you can avoid any failure, and the faster you can achieve success.
What is success?
On the opposite side of the spectrum, success is the accumulation of good decisions made continuously over a period of time. For example, if you work out one day, you won’t see any result or success. But if you work out every day for 5 months, you will see noticeable and measurable results, and that is real, tangible success. If you write one page a day for a year, you have a book. If you eat good healthy food every single day of your life, you will have a healthier body. Success is quite simply managing to accomplish good disciplines on a daily basis. The reason why the majority of people do not achieve a high level of success is the lack of consistency. They will eat well 3-4 days out of 7, and work out 1 or 2 days per week. They will complete their tasks 3 times out of 10. Mediocre consistency creates mediocre results. If you want to experience life on a whole other level of personal success, you need to be the most consistent person possible.
As you can see, the line between success and failure is very thin. Sometimes it’s not obvious that we are doing something that is wrong, so it’s crucial to have an open mind and be critical of oneself. But it’s the act of doing things a certain way over a period of time that widens the gap between success and failure so tremendously. The key here is to spot your errors early, learn from them, and fix them. Then, whatever you are doing that works, keep doing it every single day by developing the habit of consistency. This is an absolute sure-fire way to obtain massive amounts of success.
