I really love the sentiment of this quote:
Success doesn’t happen over night. Neither does failure
It takes the legs out from under a couple of limiting ideas in our culture. The first idea is that successful people get lucky; that some single action or bolt of lighting comes to them and then they have some massive success (what ever that means).
The truth is, as Tony Robbins says, we’re rewarded in public for what we practice in private. When we see an apparent overnight success we’re failing to see the hours and years of work in private; the thousands of shots taken and missed, the tiny distinctions made by learning from many micro ‘failures’ over and over (and over) again.
Failure also comes over time. It’s a repeated failure to show up in the little ways. It’s taking comfort over growth each time. It’s putting it off till tomorrow. It’s waiting for the big one.
When we believe success can come over night, we buy into the idea that it can be conjured up by a monumental effort or a big ‘break’. It’s fun to believe this because monumental efforts are heroic and big breaks are sexy. What isn’t sexy is doing a little bit every day (though I do believe it is heroic).
Never mind the giant spicy explosion- I’ll take mild please. Just earnestly do the work today, and a little more the next day. And the next. And forever because it’s your vocation. You’ll have what looks to others like an overnight, giant spicy explosion of success at some point- and you can enjoy it as such…
But you’ll know the truth:
The massive success that comes your way will make perfect sense to you. It will have been the inevitable result of your daily, mild, mundane work.
