When you’re looking at successful people, remember that you’re looking at people who have made a lot of mistakes in their time.
They’ve bought the crap. They’ve bought into the crap.
They’ve gambled. And lost.
They’ve groped in the darkness and stubbed their toes a few times.
They’ve reworked, reiterated, reframed, restarted, and revised.
They’ve fallen into a few holes and spent a good amount of time finding their way out.
They’ve let other people down. And they’ve been let down by other people.
In other words, it’s not just you. That person who perhaps has more success than you also has more failures than you’d care to know about.
Of all the things that person possesses, their financial assets are probably the least valuable.
What’s most valuable is their ability to keep their eyes forward.
Through the swamps. On top of the hills. In the parties. In the loneliness. Through confusion. Through absolutely clarity. Whether in fortunate winds or when they’re rowing like hell.
Eyes forward.
Life is full of choices, decisions, and incoherent data. You’ll choose A when, in retrospect, B was better. You’ll draw the wrong conclusion when someone with more experience may have come to a better conclusion with the same data. And sometimes it’ll suck.
Learn what you need to from the experiences you’re accruing. Sit with them and feel them. You can’t look backwards and forward at the same time, though. When you’re ready to work through whatever you’re going through, plant your feet; eyes forward.
That’s the direction you want to go, right?
Originally published at productiveflourishing.com