Stepping Stones to Success

“Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose...the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.”

James Allen, As A Man Thinketh

I offer this as a word of encouragement to anyone who needs. Particularly those of us caring for special needs children. Failure is a necessary part of learning. You aren't going to make the right choice every single time. No one can. Accept that fact.

Some people keep souvenirs of their failures to remind themselves that life is too hard to even try to be successful. They use these souvenirs as evidence to justify their belief in the lie that they should not even try. Don't collect souvenirs of failures. Don't hang them around your neck like millstones to drag you down. Instead lay your failures before like stepping stones. Learn from your mistakes and use them to build yourself a path to where you want to go in life. Choose to build a path for yourself to great places.

Teaching children how to handle failure is a vital life lesson. It is a lesson that children will learn as much from what is said as from what is done. Modeling for them how to learn from failure sets the stage for building a life of success. None of us who now walk would ever have learned to do so if the first time we fell down we stayed down and refused to get back up.

There will be lots of failures in your life. Each and every one of them will be an opportunity to start over and strive for success and mastery in life. So what are you going to do with your failures? Will you collect them as souvenirs or will you build a path to greatness?