It’s possible to learn from people who fail as much as from people who succeed. Obviously, you take from the people who succeed lessons on what they did to succeed and you try to duplicate their actions. From the people who fail you take away lessons on what brought about their failure and you try to avoid duplicating their actions.

Over the last several years I have tried my hand at so many business projects my head is still spinning from going around and around in circles. I credit myself for having the courage to try new things, but I wonder if perhaps I haven’t jumped from one thing to the next without really giving each project a chance to grow to what I originally hoped it would become.

Could I have become what art.com is today for example, if I had not given up on my online art gallery in a fit of frustration over my inability to bring traffic to the website? Did I take my eye off that ball for the split second required to lose control of the point? I wanted to sell art; but somewhere along the road I got sidetracked. I got caught up in vying to outdo my competition before I had even established an identity. I began to concentrate my efforts on generating traffic to my website even though the site was not quite fully developed. I could not even say I had a sound plan for what I wanted to do and how I intended to get it done. But I jumped ahead of myself nonetheless. And when my efforts were not rewarded as hoped, I became dishearted. I became defeated. I decided that I was wasting my time with art gallery project.

It’s a good thing to be able to think of new ideas. I have always managed to come up with something new to try when something else I’ve tried doesn’t work; but it could be said that I tend to give up too quickly. I don’t allow enough time or apply enough effort once I’ve planted a seed, to allow the project to grow. I expect it to produce fruit before it has even managed to germinate, and when it doesn’t I abandon it and move to something else.

Had I kept my eye on the ball where the art gallery was concerned–had I focussed on the goal to sell art, I might have been able to determine exactly what would be needed in order to accomplish this goal; but because I lost my focus and began to concentrate instead on ways to bring people to the website, I found myself completely clueless before too long, not knowing exactly what was my purpose.

I’ve repeated the same mistake a few times, acting on impulse to start a new project and then just as impulsively dropping it and moving to something else. And on every occassion it is always the case that I suddenly find myself not knowing what exactly I am trying to do with a project even though I start out very clear on what I want to do. I end up uncertain because I habitually take my eye off the ball. I second-guess myself. I rethink my decisions and then rethink any new decisions I come to, which, interestingly, is one of the 31 major causes of failure listed in Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”: lack of a well defined power of decision.

If you’re smart of course you won’t take advice from a failure, unless you’re smart enough to know you can learn from other people’s mistakes the same way you can learn from other people’s successes. But if you want a piece of advice, make a decision and stick with it. Have a plan outlined for what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. Keep your eye on the ball and don’t lose sight of your goal. It will give you a better chance of succeeding.

Note:

Bouncing ball animated gif source http://www.tutorialsite.org/tutorial.php?tut=Bouncing%20Ball%20Gif