Life does not always go according to plan.  We all “fail.”  We don’t get the “A”, we don’t get the job, we get rejected when we ask our dream girl out.  The important point here is that most of these “failures” are not permanent.  Rather, they are temporary defeats ultimately shaping us and making us better and stronger.  For every temporary defeat, there is an equal or even more valuable lesson to be learned.  In other words, rather than get bogged down and defeated by unwelcomed “failures,” successful people treat temporary defeats as 1) temporary, and 2) an avenue to learn something and a way to improve oneself.

Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich wrote in his currently lesser known book Outwitting the Devil (published in 2011, more than 70 years after it was written) that, “the capacity to surmount failure without being discouraged is the chief asset of every man who attains outstanding success in any calling.”  When mediocre people face failure, they get discouraged and quit.  The decide they are incapable of more because they could not accomplish the task at that particular time and place.  They set their own limitations based on these failures.

On the other hand, in facing challenges and temporary setbacks, successful people identify and absorb the important lesson to be learned,  accept the temporary loss, and continue to press on until they reach their goal.  Successful people, as Napoleon Hill put it, “analyze temporary defeat, extract from it the seed of an equivalent advantage.” Successful people never quit.  They identify and utilize the advantage in every temporary setback, and continue to move onward and upward.