Woody Hayes was right. You can have a lot of fun with life when you start believing that you deserve success. When you believe that all you need to do is outwork those around you to get ahead, you no longer spend your time worrying if it’s going to happen. Instead you start planning for when it’s going to happen. When a competitor scoffs at your talents, just smile and keep on working. You will come out the winner no matter what they think of you. This is a life-long race, and you’ve got plenty of time to make up the distance.
What can you change in your routine to increase your efforts to achieve success?
DAY
266
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
— Ronald E. Osborn
A key element of success is to always be open to opportunities to learn and grow. You will never know it all, no matter how old you are or how successful you become. In fact, you should continually seek out opportunities to learn new things. A new prospect for success can be unearthed just about anywhere, so get out your shovel and start digging. There are so many exciting aspects of this world that you have not yet discovered. Do you wonder what you might be missing?
Your assignment today is to try to do something beyond what you have already mastered. Pick a subject area that interests you and dive in. No excuses. Take action and pursue something new. You will add to the volumes of information stored inside your brain, and you will also stay in shape mentally. You need to be sharp when you are in hot pursuit of success.
Margaret is ninety-three years old, and she has never stopped learning. She conquers a crossword puzzle every morning and constantly reads new books on a wide variety of subjects. She is even up for trying new exercises whenever she meets with her physical therapist. Margaret had a stroke last year, but she bounced back faster than most people her age. Part of the reason for her achievement is she constantly keeps her mind and her body active. She continues to absorb new information and new experiences. Margaret is a great example of success—especially after her stroke.
DAY
267
“An easy life doesn’t teach us anything. In the end it’s learning that matters—what we’ve learned and how we’ve grown.”
— Richard Bach
Your task today is to reflect on your past. When in your life have you learned the most? What exactly was going on that created a spike in your education? Some people assume they learned the most during their school years. Others disagree heartily with that idea and claim that their education really started when they got into the workforce and had to perform in a job. Their paycheck depended on learning a new skill, so they perked up and paid attention. Another group of people might point out that they learned the fastest when they were put in a crisis situation, either personal or professional. Maybe the welfare of their family or even their own life depended on learning something new. What has been your experience?
The quote above suggests that the difficult parts of your journey in life are your greatest teachers. Do you agree with that statement? Most of us would prefer an easy life to a hard one, but how much do we really learn during the effortless parts of our journey?
The next time you face difficulties, practice turning your dread and fear into a chance to engage and learn from your experience. This is a very difficult thing to do. It’s hard to step out of panic mode and open up your mind to learn new ways to cope with your situation. Be brave and try it. The more you are able to approach tough times as an opportunity to grow, the faster you will speed toward success. These experiences have nothing to do with winning and losing. In the end, it’s learning that matters.
DAY
268
“Knowledge is love and light and vision.”
— Helen Keller
How would you describe the word knowledge? What synonyms come to mind when you ponder that word? Take some time to write in your journal today about knowledge. Then feel free to draw a picture or two that describes how you feel about knowledge, or use your creativity in another way to develop an accurate depiction of the word. Are your thoughts completely positive on this subject, or do you have a few resentments attached to it? Remember to always be honest when carrying out these assignments. You’re only lying to yourself if you cover up your true feelings. These exercises are solely for your benefit.
Helen Keller offers a slightly surprising and very enlightening definition of knowledge in the quote above, considering the fact that she was deaf and blind. Imagine what it was like to feel as isolated as Helen Keller must have felt before she started working with her teacher, Annie Sullivan. How did she endure that solitary darkness with almost no way to communicate with the world around her? How could she ever have imagined she would have an opportunity to learn, much less become a successful author, lecturer, and political activist?
Annie Sullivan found a way to communicate with her. She broke through the wall that Helen Keller struggled against, and the knowledge poured in. It was love and light and, yes, vision to a woman who once was blind. Knowledge is transforming, and this historical relationship between a teacher and a student is a shining example of its powerful nature.
DAY
269
“Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.”
— Vilfredo Pareto
This quote is a terrific description of the benefits of mistakes. When you are learning something new, you really want to come across a big, juicy error. Why? Because it is bursting with seeds of opportunity. It is far more interesting to learn from your mistakes than it is to get everything right the first time.
Richard was a brilliant student. He had all the answers. His chemistry notebook was so neat it could have been a textbook. Nothing was scribbled out or written over. It was perfect. Richard was also bored out of his mind, because he was in possession of the sterile truth. He knew how everything was supposed to turn out, so he didn’t need to follow the road to discovery. He took the shortcut and got no real satisfaction out of it.
David’s chemistry notebook, on the other hand, was a disaster. There were scribbles all over the place, stains from experiments gone wrong, and questions written up and down the margins. David was having the time of his life! He was gobbling up the messy fruits of newly acquired knowledge, and he learned more through his mistakes than his triumphs.
Think about this: if you come to the correct answer right away, that’s it. You’re done. You deprive yourself of the learning process. It’s like skipping to the back of a mystery novel to find out whodunit. Would you like to live your life like Richard, bored but correct? Or would you rather emulate David, a student who struggles but thrives in the search for knowledge?