It’s something human beings try to avoid as much as cancer.

At first it may not seem that way but when it happens to you, your life as you know it can be turned upside down.

Not only that but it can leave you feeling powerless in anything you can do to change it.

What I’m referring to is…

Feeling like a failure.

Not just a slight feeling of failure, like you would have if someone asked you for directions and you didn’t know…

But rather, feeling like a failure to the point where it is running your life and holding you back from doing what you would truly love most.

It’s that feeling of being disappointed with yourself, especially if you put in a lot of time and effort, along with the sacrifices you made. All with high hopes that you’ll achieve the outcome you want…

And then quite often in one swift moment it comes to an end.

This reminds me of a lovely lady who was in my Breakthrough to Achieve program .

She had her Masters Degree  in Education from Harvard University.

She applied  to the Harvard Phd. program  and got turned down…rejected.

It left her feeling like a failure, especially when you consider the fact that she had all of the recommendations from her Phd. advisers along with being fully qualified.

Not to mention the six years of time and effort she put in up to that point.

It still didn’t matter. She didn’t get accepted and it left her feeling like a failure.

Now you may not have gone to Harvard or applied to their Phd. program, but if you’ve ever had an experience where you felt like a failure to the point of it leaving you feeling like you wanted to give up…what can you do in moving forward? What can you do to turn things around in your life?

Before we get to that here’s something I want you to understand that is very important…

The only way that you can see yourself as being a failure is if you’re comparing yourself to someone else and feel that if you had (or were living the type of life they were) what they have, life would be better, life would be happier.

The lady who got turned down from the Harvard Phd. program was comparing herself to those of the people that were in the Phd. program. That was the source of her feelings of failure. And it also left her feeling slightly depressed.

So the first thing to be aware of is if you’re comparing yourself to someone else,  even to those people who may be in a program, a profession, or a club, organization, and so on, that you would love to be a part of.

What else can you do from here in moving forward. Let’s take a look at that now:

1. The next thing you would do is to ask yourself…

“Would I want to trade places with the person (or people) who are in the situation I wanted to be in?”

Think about this one. It’s very easy at first to think that your life would have been better if you had gotten into that program or got that promotion. That’s one side of the total picture. What would you have given up as a result?

If the lady I told you about earlier had gotten into the Harvard Phd. program she would have found herself putting in many hours. But at the same time she would have given up certain freedoms she had in other areas of her life.

You can look at it as being a game of give and take. Just know that if you ever find yourself in a situation where you feel you wished you could trade places with someone else—to take the time and ask yourself if you’d give up what you currently have– in favor of having what that other person has (along with the things this person has that you wouldn’t want).

2. Always remember this—it’s impossible to perceive yourself as being a failure without also seeing yourself as being successful. So the question you want to ask yourself is…

“Where am I successful?”

When you answer this, look to each of the 7 different areas of life (spiritual, mindset, career, financial, family/relationships, social, physical). As you come up with your answers, you’ll start to see that you’re already successful. It’s just a matter of which areas of life that your success is in.

Here’s one last very important point that I want to share with you.

Every person who has achieved their goals endured thousands of failures along the way. What allowed these people to keep going without giving up is the fact that they embraced both sides equally in pursuit of their purpose…support and challenge, ease and difficulty, pleasure and pain and so on.

They also endured the thousands of successes they had along the way as well.

Since you’re with yourself 24 hours a day 7 days a week, you’ll have moments of beating yourself up while feeling like a failure. You’ll also have moments when you lift yourself up and feel like a success.

In fact here’s something that is very shocking to most people…

You can’t beat yourself up without simultaneously lifting yourself up. And these occur at the same moment.

This is the main takeaway for you here.

As you go through your life you experience both success and failure equally. If you see yourself as failing look to see where you’re succeeding. If you see yourself as succeeding look to see where you’re failing.

Doing this will help you stay more focused and poised during your amazing life’s journey.

And in the process of doing so, you’ll realize how magnificent and brilliant of a person you are and the tremendous amount of value you contribute to the world.