Virtually every self-development book points its reader to the mind and to the adjustment of some beliefs/perspectives. After reading a few, it’s not difficult to realize that those who’ve dedicated themselves to finding the secrets of success and happiness understand well that life is created from within first. Our potential is tenfold with the proper beliefs about life and the way we operate.

“I can’t do that. I don’t know how. What if that happens. There’s so and so in the way. I can’t afford it. I don’t have the time.”

They’re all escapes – expressions of a limiting belief deep down. A far more productive approach would be to turn the statements into questions as to open the mind, rather than closing it.

“How can I do that? Where can I learn to? What will I do when that happens? How can I persuade? How can I afford? What’s most important?”

The reason most individuals don’t get what they want is because they haven’t genuinely tried. Full of doubt, they do themselves the greatest disservice: they stop themselves from inheriting any new risks; from learning. Success requires failure – in fact, it demands it. Failure gives us an opportunity to learn and to grow.

Napoleon Hill, author of Laws of Success, expresses this gracefully, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”

Through any great undertaking, we must not only be willing to fail, but expect to. And since we know some failure is guaranteed in life, we should be failing towards what we actually want; what genuinely matters.