Success vs Failure

In our current culture failure means: lack of success; an unsuccessful person, enterprise, or thing.

But that is a narrow and incomplete definition.

If you look further, you will find a more complete definition: a lack or deficiency of desired quality; the action or state of not functioning; a sudden cessation of power.

What this demonstrates is that failure is not something that happens to you, but something you choose.

Failure is really just us quitting.

EPIPHANY!! As long as we never quit, we never fail.

Let me say it differently. There are two types of success; gestational success and actual success.

Actual success is defined as: the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, the outcome of an undertaking specified as achieving its aim.

So Success means that you have achieved 100% or more of your desired aim or outcome. Gestational Success simply means that you have not yet fully achieved your desired aim or outcome, but are on the path to doing so. Success is not instantaneous. There is a lag time or gestation period between desire, action, and outcome.

On our campus farm, we often have a goal to hatch out chicks. We take action to setup the incubator, wherein we place the fertilized eggs. Then when we return the next morning and there are no chicks—we have no choice, we must concede failure…right?

Of course, not! Because we understand that there is a gestation period, we know that it is a work in progress and that it will take 21 days for the process to complete. So if we are not failing during the 21-day process, what are we doing? We are participating in gestational success!! Even though we can’t see it, there is plenty happening inside the egg, or the seed in the ground, or the mind of the infant, etc.

Failure then is not something that can happen to us, it is not a phenomenon that is out of our control—it is a choice…pure and simple.

Gestational Success is continued effort until the completion or end of the gestational period.

When dealing with the hatching of chickens or the breeding of any farm animal, long experience has taught us what to expect or has informed our expectations, so we are resolved to maintain our vigilance for the duration of the perceived gestation period.

But what if we are creating something new and are not sure of the gestation period or all of the proper steps to take during the gestation process? This is where preparation is vital. Even though the process may be new to us, it is not new to everyone. Chances are, someone has already done all of the hard work to figure out the gestational period and process. All we have to do is find them and replicate what they have done—and never give up.

When we are hatching chicks, we don’t get creative and try to change the gestation period or process.

In a similar manner, we trust those who have gone before us in areas where we have little first hand knowledge.

Our expectations are created based on their “fruits”and we follow their example to the “T” anticipating the same results.

We have full confidence that what they have done–we can do. We clearly see that Gestational Success precedes Actual Success and we never concede to failure, because we never give up.

Not all of our eggs always hatch…so do we then consider our efforts a failure? Of course not, even if only 5 out of 10 eggs hatch (which almost never happens), we still have 5 chicks that will grow up to lay eggs from which we can try again. As long as we never quit, we never fail.

The dictionary and real life definition of failure is to enter a state of not functioning or a cessation of power.

Only death can force us to not function or to cease exerting power. Let’s be honest, any other situation where we enter a state of not functioning or a cessation of power is nothing more than us quitting.

Bottom Line: we are either quitters or we are doers, and it has nothing to do with anyone else.

Personalized:

Bottom Line: I am either a quitter or I am a doer, and it has nothing to do with anyone else.

DECIDE.   ACT.   SUCCEED.