MOTIVATION - The Opportunity to Begin Again

MOTIVATION – The Opportunity To Begin Again


By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting CC – May 2010

Henry Ford says “Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”

What an incredible opportunity to change our mindsets! What an incredible opportunity to look at the world through different eyes. What an incredible opportunity to make a choice, to stop beating ourselves up, to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, learn the lesson and move on with renewed energy, a lot of insight and a smile of optimism on our faces. I surely do like it!

Most of us look at failure in a really negative light. In this country, we are so programmed to be successful that failure of any kind has a really bad stigma attached to it. People look at someone who has failed as though they have some sort of contagious disease and who should be avoided at all costs.

Yet the fact of the matter is that we all fail on a daily basis. The reality is that are not born perfect and that we have to learn. The challenge here though, is that we need to learn from our mistakes and not repeat the same mistake over and over again.

Then of course is the myth that many people have, that ‘opportunities’ never come their way! What a load of hooey! Yes of course opportunities can come your way (or not) but the other reality is that you can make your own opportunity. Our thoughts can become our realities if we put in the right ingredients and that of course is the ‘action’. Even those opportunities that fall out of the sky like manna from heaven, still need to be actioned. Without action they remain . . . well opportunities.

I am often amazed at the reaction of individuals who sit around and bemoan their fate, nothing works for them, everybody hates them, none of their ideas or their schemes take off, Networking doesn’t work for them and they wait for something to happen, something to rescue them and nothing does! Well, quite frankly – what on earth did they expect? The miracle that is, is life (and even that required an action), for everything else we have to get up off our rear ends and do something about it!

Simple, isn’t it? So when you fail and fall down – stop crying and moaning and waiting for an angel to come and rescue you. Think about what you have done that got you there in the first place, make adjustments to what caused the problem, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get going – find the opportunity and then do something (albeit different) about it.

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za