Staying Balanced

I’ve heard it mentioned, “Don’t let success go to your head or failure go to your heart.”

Success can be intoxicating and also deluding. It can cause not only arrogance but apathy. Success can turn someone who was once driven and determined to being comfortable and complacent. Tragically, once the arrogance or complacency sets in, people will stop making the sacrifices it took to birth the success in the first place. By staying humble, you stay teachable and willing to learn and improve. By staying hungry, you keep apathy at bay.

Failure can be debilitating and – when it leads to doubt – will trigger a cancer in the soul. It can destroy confidence and initiative. If we dwell on the failure for too long, it poisons our outlook for the next opportunity or challenge. However, we can’t ignore or downplay failure either. Failure can be a great teacher but only if we let it. We learn a lot more from losses than we do from wins but we must remove our emotions and focus on the lesson. Again, it comes down to being humble and hungry. Be humble enough to not take the failure personally or let your injured pride overshadow the lesson. Be hungry enough to continually face failure again, as it is the gatekeeper for success.

Stay centered and composed. Don’t celebrate the victories for too long, neither should you mourn the defeats. Instead, prepare for tomorrow’s battles.

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