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How to Respond to Failure (Part 1)

Posted on May 20, 2009 in Working Online  

In the affiliate marketing world, nevermind the current economic woes, we will all face failure.  For some of you reading this first sentence, you will think, “Yeah, it seems like I am continually facing failures.  It’d sure be nice to win one once in a while.”

For many of our readers new to affiliate marketing or internet marketing in general, you likely experience failures that at time seem devastating, even career altering.  Please know that you aren’t alone and that even the ultra successful experience similar thoughts / feelings as long as they are still working and pressing forward.  Whether young or old, if you are still aiming for new heights, trying new techniques, building out new campaigns, or testing new waters, you will fail…again and again and again.

If we keep this in mind, we will most certainly find it easier to face defeat, plan harder to prevent major catastrophes, and learn as much as we can each time we encounter failures so that the next time won’t be so bad.  Notice,how I bolded two words in the last sentence…next time.  This is so vital in everything; business and all of life for that matter.If it wasn’t the case, then there would be NO reason to have a word like perserverance in the dictionary.  In order to succeed you must fai and in most cases you must fail hard and often.  Failure is not an enemy but a refining friend to the one who perserveres.

In considering the above statements, ask yourself this question:

“Am I in business to succeed and provide a living for myself or my family?  Or am I simply playing games and wasting time?

If you answer in honesty that this is your chosen field of work and you are in it to make a living, then by all means, consider failure a friend.  How easy it is for us to become jealous seeing those around us experience great victories and triumphs in the business world.  Don’t deceive yourself however and think they had it easy or that they just win, win, win all the time.  They too experienced many a dark hour and many a frustrating (money losing) day.

I hear people all the time say, “I want to be like ____________.” or “I wish I could do what ___________ can do.”

First of all, no you don’t.  To get where PersonX is, you would have to do what they did to get there.  You would have to SACRIFICE.  You would have to face numerous failures and lose countless hours sleep.  You would have to lose hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to get there.  You sure you want that?  Will you pay the price?

Secondly, I must point  out that though some experience a lottery like success story, please understand how that is an EXCEPTION, not the general rule.

Consider the following quotes that fit well with this post:

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” Albert Einstein

“He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.”  Samuel Smiles

“Don’t be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.“  John Keats

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.“  Thomas Edison



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Comments

2 Responses to “How to Respond to Failure (Part 1)”

  1. Lee on May 26th, 2009 1:02 pm

    Interesting article that should provide to be good motivation to many affiliate marketers.

  2. Cricket on May 26th, 2009 1:20 pm

    This is a favorite topic of mine because I see so many people give up, not realizing how close they were to success. Everything I have learned to do successfully, started with me first finding every possible way that did NOT work. ;)

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