GIVE UP ON THE NOTION OF EVER ARRIVING AT PERFECTION

DEVELOP NEW STRATEGIES TO SUCCEED

Lester Thurlow points out that “a competitive world has two possibilities for you. You can lose, or, if you want to win, you can change.” Once you develop a plan and put it into action, you’re not finished. In fact, if you want to succeed, you’re never finished. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work; you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. But that’s okay.

Failures are milestones on the success journey. Each time you plan, risk, fail, reevaluate, and adjust, you have another opportunity to begin again, only better than the last time. As sixty-seven-year-old Thomas Edison said as his laboratory burned to the ground, “Thank goodness all our mistakes were burned up. Now we can start again fresh.”