My journey.: November 2008

This weekend I was in my coaching course. It is so much fun to be working on my skills and I am excited about the prospect of becoming a professional life coach. And, I'm pretty good at it already...I think..... But, yesterday in my last coaching session I got my head handed to me on a plate. Not pleasant. Even worse, the same thing happened to me in my last session in our previous coaching weekend. Double whammy! Just one difference....almost. The first time I was crushed after the feedback and it took me a few days to get my head screwed back on (straight) again. This time I had promised myself to check my ego at the door. I wish I had been successful. But no such luck, as I had to admit that it did sting again.....just not as bad as the last time. After the course was over I went up to one of our facilitators, Ken, and thanked him for the weekend. He looked at me and did his coaching stuff again in his creative, expressive way. "Next time you fail, how about you celebrate it", he said and stretched out his arms, smiling from ear to ear. Right then I knew he was right. It is not about how well we succeed; it is about how well we get up when we fail. As Winston Churchill so eloquently put it:

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

I'm not there yet, but I am getting some great practice in humility and perseverance. And that does count for something. It would be nice not to have such up and down cycles, but then again, I'm not so sure I would prefer it after all. It is the lows that make me appreciate and celebrate the highs. And I love it when I'm on top of the world and I'm confident that I can accomplish anything. So if it takes a "few" lows to make me stronger and happier, as well as learning to cherish the richness of life, then that's ok by me. Theodore Rosevelt said these good words about the value of failure:

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
From a speech given in Paris at the Sorbonne in 1910

Here is a final quote that sums it up:

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

-William Saroyan

Life is a playground so we may as well get out there and play...HARD!