THE POWER OF RESILIENCE

In life, one of the greatest denominators of success is resilience. Our failures are the road to success but we have to be resilient enough to keep trying after every failure until we achieve our winning formula. But when we keep failing over and over again we question whether our efforts are worth it and whether we will get anywhere. If you need assurances about the power of consistently getting up when you are knocked back, look no further than Thomas Edison, the man who invented the lightbulb.

So what is so significant about Thomas Edison’s story, he only invented a piece of electric that lights up right? We have to remember that the power is not in the end result, but the story….Edison achieved his success after 10,000 attempts. When questioned about his failures his response was….

“I didn’t fail 10,000 times I just successfully found 10,000 ways that did not work.”

Life is indeed a game of trial and error, but we have to be courageous enough and persistent to keep on trying and trying until we find that ONE winning method that changes the game for us.

I like to define failure as growth, because each failure makes you better than the last attempt….

I have been in Martial arts for 30 years, but some of the most basic techniques that I execute with strength, power and technique were achieved through 100’s and 100’s of incorrect techniques and a fair few injuries before getting it right. Thomas Edison’s story gave me the inspiration to keep failing till I found the one method that was a success. For instance, the jumping spinning kick that I now do so easily was near impossible when I started, as I have inverted toes. When I started doing jump techniques I could barely hop as my toes hurt excruciatingly. However, that was my first growth spurt…the message that I needed to do more hops and condition my feet to be more springy for my jumps. As time went on I performed 100’s of failed hook kicks before getting that technique right, then 100’s of failed spinning hook kicks which involved me falling over so many times, before I got that right then the courage to jump up, spin, fall over and hurt myself before I finally mastered that technique….All in all, it took me 12 years to finally get the jump spin kick right.

Over a decade of 100’s of failures, hurting myself and falling over was what brought me to my success.

The point of the stories…If you value something so much in your life, keep on keeping on, have the courage to fail many times over and realise that each failure is growing you closer to your personal success.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

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