I was at a networking event recently and I was chatting to a very successful businesswoman who told me, in no uncertain terms, that the worst thing you could ever do to a child was to send them to school. “Why?” I asked intrigued. “Because all a school does is to teach you to conform. To obey the rules. Not to question things. It prepares you for a life living on someone else’s terms. To not think for yourself”. I found myself nodding my head.
It got me thinking: There’s a load of other stuff schools should concentrate on too. It would make for much happier life:
Mistakes and failures are ok. It is ok to try something and fail. Schools teach that failing is bad so people learn not to try things for fear of failure. What if you tried something and failed? People might laugh at you. Ridicule you. Best not try it.
NO! Try everything. At least once. You will fail. Probably more than once. But you will get better, more experienced. More resilient. Stronger. Success in life comes from not giving up despite mistakes and failures. (Are they really failures?)
Reconnect with the child in you. Learning to walk, ride a bicycle involved a lot of trying and failing. But you didn’t give up then did you? You kept trying. Why not now?
Don’t compare yourself to others. Why does everyone do this? It can only make you feel less content. You loved your new car until someone turned up in an even later model. What’s wrong with the car now? Comparing yourself against others will make you miserable.
The best thing is to compare is yourself. What you have accomplished? How far have you come? What you have learnt? Trust me. This works wonders. An inner calm will settle over you.
Most of what you fear will happen never really come into reality. So quit worrying! The fear you feel is a big fake phoney manifesting itself in your mind. It probably won’t be as bad as you think it is. What were you worrying about last year? Was it, really and honestly, as bad as you thought?
There are opportunities in just about every experience. In almost every part of life there is something you can learn from. To grow from. Negative experiences, failures, mistakes can often be better teachers than success. It will teach you something new. Something that you would have missed if success had come first time.
Whenever you have a “negative experience” ask yourself: where is the opportunity in this? What is good about this situation?
Your attitude changes your reality. What you expect to happen often does. A negative attitude often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A negative attitude and you will see all the negatives. Opportunities will be missed. By adopting a positive attitude you will see things from a different perspective. This often leads to success in life.
I think the quote below is quite a neat philosophy. So much is about attitude. It really is.
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus Aurelius
This is what should be taught.
