Does being afraid of losing shut down our creativity, limit the possibilities of our lives, creates enormous amounts of pressure, and induce tension in our bodies?
So ironically does fighting the competition actually diminish the levels at which we perform, rather than elevate them?
Should we just focus on being the best we can be?
Then the only thing we'll have to compare ourselves to is the person that we used to be.
Is success as much a limitation to creativity as failure?
When we remember a success, our memory often becomes really strong and we get a good feeling about it. We are likely to keep doing the same thing over and over again without exploring other options. We could get to the point where we stop being creative and get stuck, because we've run into a new situation where old behaviours don't work and we don't have new choices.
Does failure actually makes us teachable?
It is said that Thomas Edison tried three thousand different materials in search of the perfect material for the filament of his light bulb. When none worked satisfactorily, his assistant complained, “All our work is in vain. We have learned nothing.”
Edison replied very confidently, “Oh, we have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We know that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb.”
Edison also said that, "many of life's failures are people who did not know how close they were to success when they gave up"
Ultimately, happiness doesn't depend on who we are or what we have; it depends solely on what we think. At all stages in life, we have a choice in how we are affected by events. It's not the event itself that affects us emotionally. What affects us is how we respond to the event.
As someone rightly said, 'We are not born winners or losers, we are born choosers'.
Musings inspired by Robert Dilts, Robin Sharma, Edison and others.