“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
Learning To Ignore Negativity
Negative people have always existed and they will always exist. There’s nothing I nor you can do to change that. But we can learn to cancel the noise, so to speak. We can learn to drown out the negativity as we push forward to achieve our dreams.
In your life, if you’ve been striving towards something, hit some brick walls or major obstacles, and been faced with a slew of setbacks and negativity from people around you, you’re most certainly not alone. There will always be people there to tell you that you can’t do something, that you’re not smart enough, that you don’t have enough resources or connections, that you don’t have enough money, and so on. But you have to ignore the negativity if you want to achieve your goals.
But negativity doesn’t only come from the outside, it also comes from within. Yes, there are people out there that will try to hold you back and bring you back down to their level. The unfortunate truth is that people, for the most part, don’t want to see others close to them succeed. But negativity can also come from within. Your own mind can help to breed and foster that negativity, making you doubt your self-worth, abilities, talent, and capacity for success.
So, how can we cancel the noise, so to speak?
Your Greatest Failures are Your Biggest Blessings
Everyone in life fails at something. When we fail, it causes a tremendous amount of pain. And, our minds do whatever they can to help avoid pain and gain pleasure – it’s part of a paradigm of innate biological cues and responses that are basal by nature. It’s not easy to fail at something. It’s not easy to be beset with a tremendous amount of pain, but that pain and failure are your biggest blessings.
However, when you’re surrounded by negativity, it can help to exponentially increase the pain of failure or even the potential pain for failure. Even if you didn’t fail at something, the fear of failing itself tends to hold us back. That fear is bred not only by the mind itself in its quest to avoid pain, but also by external influencers such as friends, family members, and peers. But you change that once and for all.
What you have to really realize is that your greatest failures are your biggest blessings. Even if you failed at something in the past, and you were faced with a tremendous amount of pain, that same pain can help to fuel you in the future. Life throws us certain lessons from time to time, which we have to use to gain a deeper understanding for all things. Failing in business, relationships, finances, or any other goal is painful, but it can also be your biggest blessings.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligibly. — Henry Ford
How to Achieve your Goals
When we fail, and when we’re faced with negativity, both internally and externally, achieving our goals might seem almost impossible. We begin to doubt ourselves and our minds tend to backtrack making excuses for why we didn’t want a certain goal in the first place. We come up with seemingly valid reasons why we didn’t want that hope or that dream, really. But, we have to understand that this is normal; this happens to everyone.
But, failure is the bridge of opportunity to success. Without failure, it’s impossible to achieve long-term success. Failure helps to pour the foundation for what will be a bright and wondrous future. So, if you’ve faced failure recently, or even at some point in the past, you have to realize that your failures were “simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligibly.”
So, how do you achieve your goals in the face of failure? How do you ignore negativity and breakthrough your self-imposed limitations?
Step #1 — Understand the “Why”
It doesn’t matter how much negativity there is out there, which may be holding you back. It doesn’t matter how many times you failed at doing something. What matter is why you want something. Do you know why you had or have a certain goal? If you don’t know why, then you’ve missed the first and most important step in goal setting.
Remember, reasons come first in goal setting. If you don’t have a strong enough reason why, then it’s hard to ignore negativity or overcome past failure and pain. But, when your “why” is strong enough, you can achieve anything. Figure out why you want something, and if it has a profound and deep enough meaning to you, then it will help to fuel you in your pursuits.
Step #2 — Understand the “When”
The second step to achieving your goals, even in the face of great adversity, negativity, or past failures, is to understand when you’ll achieve your goals. You have to associate a specific date to your goal achievement. Don’t just come up with some obscure timeframe in your mind. Be exact and specific.
Next to each of your goals, after you write out why you’re going to achieve them, write the date you’ll achieve them by. Don’t just say you want to lose more weight this year. Write out exactly how much weight you intend to lose, why you’re going to lose it, and specifically when you’ll do that by.
Why is the “when” so important?
When you set out a specific date, and you write it down so that you can see it every single day, your mind has a funny way of stressing you in the direction of your goals. It’s also a great reminder of what you need to do, even in the face of negativity and failure. Make sure you write out the “when,” and not just the “what” for your goals.
Step #3 — Cancel the Noise
You can cancel the noise of negativity that’s both internal and external by using a few simple tricks. Firstly, understand that negativity will always exist. Negative people will always be around to tell you that you can’t do something. Negativity will also always exist buried somewhere deep inside your mind. Once you realize that, you can take the first step in canceling the noise, both outside and inside.
Secondly, you have to find your source of inspiration. Many people failed in the past before they succeeded. Henry Ford’s first two businesses went bust, Stephen King’s first novel was rejected by 30 separate publishers, Thomas Edison failed over 10,000 times to invent a commercially-viable electric lightbulb, and J.K. Rowling suffered through the worst 7 years of her life before publishing Harry Potter.
So, find your inspiration, whoever it is, and study them. Research all the things that held them back. Read up on all the people that told them that they couldn’t do something. Remember, failure is a sign of life. So what if you fail? Isn’t the reward worth the risk? If your reasons are strong enough, then it most certainly is.
Step #4 — The Path of Persistence
The last and final step to achieving your goals, even in the face of negativity and failure, is persistence. Goal achievement can only be accomplished along the path of persistence, not the path of least resistance. If you’re thinking that something is going to be easy, especially if it’s a major goal, then think again. You’re going to fail, you’re going to want to give up, and you’re going to get frustrated. That’s when you have to dig your heels in and grind.
Remember that so many others have failed countless times over before they achieved their goals. Whatever you want out of life – whether it’s more money, a better-paying job, weight loss, or anything else – realize that it’s not going to be easy. You’re going to have to persist until you succeed. You might fall down repeatedly and face the wrath of negativity from every direction, but all you have to do is persist. Time will pass by, and you’ll inch closer and closer to your goals as long as you don’t give up.
Never give up on your hopes and your dreams, no matter what. You can accomplish anything you want to in life. Audacious spirits are met with audacious rewards, but it won’t come easy; it never comes easy.