Always Be Grateful

Today is my 65th birthday and I still feel young in spirit. I am as excited today for my present and my future as I was in my 20s. Part of that is gratitude. I am so grateful for my life. Blessings and challenges abound every day. Opportunities to grow into the person I choose for my friends, children and grandchildren to remember present themselves every day.

When I was a little 20 year old college senior, one of my professors said, “Elaine, you can have 10 years experience or one year’s experience 10 times.” Few statements in my lifetime have struck me with the force of this one. Ebino Topsy affirmed that, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to relive it.” How many people have you known who keep repeating the same types of errors? Bring it closer to home, how many times have we repeated our own mistakes?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake. It has been said that if you want to double your rate of success, then double your rate of failure. That is true, IF you learn from each one of those failures and determine how to achieve a better result next time.

I’ve failed many times in my life, but in each case I chose to learn from my mistakes. I am grateful for all of my experiences because they each taught me a valuable lesson. If I did not learn the lesson completely, I inevitably had to dig a bit deeper for the lesson and solution. I learned 2 very important lessons from failure: learn from your mistakes and keep striving for better results.

David Foster, acclaimed as the “Hit Man” because of the number of hits he has produced in the music industry, is a 15 time Grammy winner. In David’s article in Success magazine, September 2009, he openly admits that he also has failures. He has written 1,000 songs and has 100 hits.

Giving up or deciding that something does not work or does not work for you just because you had a tough day or two goes again the laws of success. Most people in the network marketing industry will tell you that they had a learning curve before they achieved success. I know I did. My success came because I chose a company with integrity, the right products for the time, the right compensation plan and the right system to market.

Even more than all of that, I chose to be the constant diligent student and learn my lessons from successful people before me. Learning is fun to me. I’m grateful for all of my experiences. Each and every one of them has taught me something valuable.

I am grateful I have the ability and willingness to step out of my comfort zone and learn. I am grateful I have the opportunity to learn. I am also grateful that I am willing to stick with a task until I do learn and prosper. How about you? Are you ready to learn and grow?