If You Knew You Couldn’t Fail What Would You Start?

In this article I’m looking at another of my quote images, and it includes one of the smallest words with the biggest power…

If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you start?

Oh come on now, that’s some corny personal development cheese right there, isn’t it!

Or is it..?

It does sound a bit on the corny side I admit, because the obvious follow up to the question is to say ‘well go ahead and do it then!’

The thing is, to dismiss it because it’s corny would be a mistake, because if we actually consider what the question is asking us, it can have a powerful impact. In fact, we can start with that small word I mentioned that has the big power…

If.

If you knew you couldn’t fail. If.

The whole point of asking ‘if we knew we couldn’t fail’, is because a lot of people don’t live to their full potential, don’t express the authentic real them, don’t live in line with their passion, because they think they *will* fail.

They may answer the ‘if you knew you couldn’t fail’ question quite easily, but will then say they have no intention of ever starting, because they think they’ll fail.

The key question then becomes ‘why do you think you’ll fail?’

Is it because other people have told you so? Friends, family, work colleagues, society in general?
Or, is it because you’ve told yourself so? Is it because you think it might be too difficult? That you might not be good enough?

We’re still on the ‘ifs’ here! It’s all speculation, assumption, guess work. It’s opinion that we have decided is fact.

When we start dealing with fact, we stop dealing with ‘ifs’, and everything changes, because we can then frame our opinions not on speculation, not on assumption, not on guess work, but on knowledge, coming as a result of action.

So, if we accept that we’re dealing with ‘ifs’, and we accept that those ‘ifs’ might just as well be positive ones as negative ones, and we want to move to turning them into facts, then we get to another powerful question…

What would you start?

In order to start something, you need to know what it is you want to start! That sounds mind numbingly obvious, but it’s amazing how many people don’t actually work out what they want.

What they really want. Not what they think they should want. Not what others tell them to want, but what they really want themselves.

If we do this, not dismissing it because of the flawed ‘ifs’, then we are starting to change our life. This is the key – do not dismiss going for your authentic desires, simply because you think you’ll fail. When you think about your goals, take way the limits by asking yourself what you’d do if you knew you couldn’t fail. Then you’ll get to your *actual* wants in life.

We move away from nonchalantly closing off massive life potential with a wave of a hand, and move towards making plans towards a real goal in the real world.

Now, at this point I should make a point I make many times, and it’s one that some people find odd. I make it because it’s as powerful as *any* of the points I ever make, and here it is…

You might fail.

There, I’ve said it.

That might sound a total contradiction to what I’ve just been covering, but bear with me here!
You might fail, and that’s something that happens in life. I’m not saying that you will always succeed at everything you try every time, after all, life isn’t Sesame Street.

To be fair they don’t even promise 100% success rate on Sesame Street either!

Yes, you might fail, but the power behind that comment comes from the fact that you might *not* fail. Now we’re talking!

You might succeed – wonderfully, gloriously, joyously.

Anyone at the top of any field, including the field where your passions lie, were not at the top of the field when they started. They started, and worked hard. They started and overcame obstacles and set backs. They started. What they *didn’t* do, is let any presumed default failure prevent them from starting in the first place.

Did they start knowing they couldn’t fail? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been a bad place to start, and you can bet they didn’t start thinking that they *would* fail! They didn’t do that disservice to themselves that so many people do, day after day, month after month, year after year.

In fact, as a side point, why don’t you find out how they felt when they started? There may well be a book about them, or you could get in touch with them yourself and ask, you might be amazed by what you get back!

So, let’s move away from having a belief of failure as the default setting. The ‘ifs’ are just assumptions, so let’s start taking action to replace the assumptions with fact. To do that we need to have a real world goal to work towards.

If we do this with the knowledge that yes, we might fail but we might not, the original question I asked has a transformational power that cuts through our layers of negativity and doubt, and can release us to let some amazing life adventures open up to us.

“If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you start?”

Ok, do let me know what you think, I love the feedback!

‘Til Next Time,
Health & Happiness,
Gordon
P.S. If you’d like to do something to get yourself moving fowards, don’t forget to grab my free 8 step goal achievement formula!