How could a weakness be anything but annoying? You overcompensate, ignore, educate, act as if, but no matter what, you feel like an utter failure. Even if your many strengths should counteract any weakness. Even if you are highly successful in other ways.
Let’s start with a list that can inspire a shift in your thinking.
- Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was four, read until he was seven, and failed high school math, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped.
- Jerry Seinfeld froze, was jeered and booed off stage the first time he tried to do standup comedy.
- Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because, "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”
- Colonel Sanders chicken recipe was rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant finally accepted it.
- Charles Darwin gave up trying to have a medical career and was often chastised by his father for being lazy and “too dreamy.”
- Teachers told Thomas Edison he was "too stupid to learn anything," was fired from his first two jobs and made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb.
- Oprah Winfrey endured a rough and often abusive childhood and was fired from her job as a television reporter because she was "unfit for TV."
- When the Beatles just started, a recording company told them "we don't like your sound, and guitar music is on the way out," two things the rest of the world couldn't have disagreed with more.
- The first book by Stephen King, the iconic thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, causing him to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it. The rest is history.
- Michael Jordan, the man lauded as the best basketball player of all time, was cut from his high school basketball team. "I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I’ve been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
Each person above is undoubtedly regarded as one of the greatest in their field. They all faced incredible obstacles, ridicule, rejection and even the animosity of society. These heroic icons, forever imprinted as the best of our species, overcame hurdles, hindrances and maybe even hopelessness.
Thankfully for the world, rather than giving up, they were inspired to work harder and show even more determination.
It could also be said they chose to follow without choice what their soul was patiently directing them to do.
Each experienced the infinite wisdom of the Universe clearing the way for them to present their unique, timely, necessary contribution. Not buy into their so-called weakness.
Get the point?
From inventors to entertainers, business gurus to athletes: History proves that ‘failure’ can be the impetus kicking us in the butt in the direction we are meant to take: Our Soul’s Purpose.
Also, those disappointments, fiascos and disasters can help us discover what we aren’t supposed to be doing… by admitting weaknesses and taking the path our strengths point out.
Rather than defining ourselves as failures, choosing to look at our challenges in a different light can expose the open door we may’ve missed. We just might discover the real direction we’re being led, determine hidden strengths, or, most importantly, what we were put on this planet to do.
However, messages received as children from people we entrusted to know more than we do are powerful. They can lead us away from our True Purpose, get stuck believing we are hopeless failures, and live life futilely, repeatedly, falling into black holes.
Is it any wonder we end up in unfulfilling careers, strangling jobs, belittling positions and thankless professions? We spend time living for the weekend, dreading Mondays, fantasizing about our accumulated vacation time and landing at far too many Happy Hours.
A gold watch or Golden Parachute retirement doesn't make up for those resented decades.
So, why did that child struggling with math end up discovering the Theory of Relativity? Was it because he needed to work harder to prove he wasn’t a failure? Or was his mind already churning with E=Mc2 thoughts that went way outside any box anyone tried to put him in?
Or was his soul’s message stronger than any limitation?
Maybe all of the above.
Here's the message: Think about what those famous people went through getting where they were supposed to be, and keep on keeping on.
Remind yourself that, sometimes failure(s) is (are) just a step(s) toward success, not who you are.
You DO have a purpose here. Let your soul lead you.
If you need assistance finding your True Purposeful Path, let’s chat.