THE FIVE “F” WORDS TO LIFE:   FEAR, FAIL, FALL, FORGIVE, AND FLOURISH

Like many, my first business failed! I’m the one that always thought and knew I wanted to do something for myself. Since I love writing, I wanted to create my own creating greeting card company. I started making customized greeting cards, invitations, and birth announcements for people. I remember having a couple of clients at the time, but that business failed, but it was a necessary stepping stone I needed to make. Now that I am more experienced, I realize the company didn’t fail. I was impatient and did not market myself enough. I wanted success, but success takes a lot of research, preparation, money, consistency, and hard work. I gave up!

I now realize that I gave up on many ideas because I was frustrated, impatient, and fearful. Fear kept me from taking a risk. You have to recognize the difference between you, and any celebrity you might admire is that they weren’t afraid to take risks. You decide and make the decisions in your life. You can “forget everything and run” or “Face everything and rise.” I ran as fast as I could for many years. Sometimes you get tired of running.

I didn’t comprehend what Wilma Rudolph stated in one of her quotes: “Winning is great, sure, but if you are going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” I had some learning to do; therefore, failure was imminent. I failed because it was my “First attempt at learning.”

My frame of mind and thinking needed reshaping.

Failure doesn’t mean surface definition that we look up from the dictionary like the webster dictionary that states, “the lack of success,” we should adopt the acronym meaning,” Fears and insecurities leads us to understand the real effect of egotism.”

We get so wrapped up with what we didn’t receive, the status we did get, that we lose focus. When we fail, we learn to humble ourselves. It teaches us what we don’t know about ourselves, our education, our careers, and the people around us. When things don’t go as planned, we need to figure out what we don’t know, how we can better ourselves.

I remember knowing I wanted to be more. I tried doing my first business, creating customize greeting cards, invitations, and birth announcements for people. I remember having a couple of clients at the time, but that business failed. I am not doing that anymore, but it was a stepping stone I needed to make. You need to decide if the party you’re at is right for you and if you are around the right people to help and guide us to the next level.

After failing, you fall. Falling means getting back to the basics, and it is about rediscovering yourself. In 2008, I wrote a book that wasn’t all that great, but I had to understand that I didn’t know all I needed to know to make my book successful; therefore, I went back to school and got my degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. I had to humble myself to know that I needed help to become a better writer. You have to ask yourself the questions many of us don’t ask. How prepared are you really for the success that you seek? Prepared, I was not.

And when you have fallen, you have to forgive yourself. We consume what we don’t have and stop our success. We live in fear, and we put things off for another day instead of making time for them. We know, but we don’t notice that the days of the week go by quickly and that the project you are supposed to be working on is still not finished. And you wonder why you are where you are in your life. Until you make the necessary observation and changes, you will be right where you are right now in your life. Forgive yourself for your mistakes, lack of knowledge, and premature action. Now that it happened, you can do better. Move on!

The only thing left for you to flourish with all the knowledge and lessons you receive is conquering your fears and not giving up unless it doesn’t want you to do any longer because you realize your passion and purpose lie elsewhere. There is a couple of things you do when you are flourishing.

• You give back
• You stay humble
• Keep learning
• Keep listening
• Keep working hard
• Keep evolving
• Be patient
• Don’t rush success
• Be authentic
• Check on your mental health

And you must understand that in your journey, you can go back-in-forth between the f’s words until you get where you need to be, and it’s okay. We get in our feelings, and sometimes it becomes challenging to pick ourselves back up. You are still in the learning phase of forgiving yourself. As long as you don’t stay stagnant for too long and if you don’t give up on yourself, you’ll be on the road to success. Robert T.  Kiyosaki said, “Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.” I am not trying to avoid success, and you shouldn’t either. I am okay with failing to learn the right choices to make and the right mixture of ingredients I need for success. Get out your feelings, your head, stay away from your ego, and get back to living life. You might learn a few new things.