One of the biggest killers of peoples dreams and ambitions is a failure and the misunderstanding around it. Today I want to discuss what failure is and how easy it is to avoid it.

Checkpoints Vs Goals

The first and most important thing to understand is the difference between your checkpoints and your goals. For example, let’s say that Apple sets the GOAL of selling 10 million products in 2019. Every 4 months they check in on sales. After the first 4 months, the sales are not where they would have liked them to be. As are the results at the end of 8 months. However, by the end of the 12 months, Apple has sold 20million products instead of 10 million. Missing a checkpoint does not mean you’re going to miss your goal. If you fall short of a checkpoint, all it means is that you need to change your approach. Keep adapting, keep experimenting, until you find a process that produces the results you want.

“Missing checkpoints does not make you a failure.”

Expectations = Reality

Another feature on the most wanted list of dream killers is not understanding how reality affects your expectations. “Whatever the mind can conceive, the mind can achieve.” Amazing and accurate words to live by. The problem is people set themselves incredibly high expectations. This is in no way a problem, if your dream doesn’t scare you, it isn’t big enough. The issue is people are not familiar with this formula. Expectations = reality X 2. However, high your expectations of yourself are, you must put in a twice the amount of effort in your reality. The second you scale down your expectations, you have failed because you’re selling yourself short.

“The quickest way to kill a big dream is to tell it to a small-minded person.”

What is failure

Last but certainly not least, what is failure? Failure is the termination of an objective before the desired outcome can be achieved. Do not set yourself non-existent or unhelpful deadlines. Not achieving something in a set amount of time does not make you a failure, you only fail when you decide to stop. Pursue your goals relentlessly, no matter how many times you make a wrong turn, obstacles you’re faced with, or checkpoints you miss.

You are NOT a failure.