Third and finally, to be good at something, really good, you’re going to have to get used to failure. The better you want to be at something, the more failure you’ll have to endure to get there.
A good sales person, for instance, will be rejected 9 times out of 10 (or more). In baseball, a batting average (your ratio of “hits” to “at bats”) is considered excellent if it’s higher than a .300, and .400 is nearly impossible. A .300 batting average means that you’re going to miss seven out of ten times at bat. The last time I ran a marathon, I had to run about 325 miles over the three months prior just so that I could run 26.2 miles the day of the race.
In short, failure needs to become a part of your life. You need to be able to look at failure for what it is: the temporary inability to achieve what you meant to, and a guide on what to change so that in the end, you succeed.
If you’re not currently pushing yourself at something and feeling the pain that happens when you do, then I’d encourage you to find a part of your life in which you’d like to improve, make sure it’s of value, and work to achieve it.
If you ARE feeling pushed and pulled, if you are struggling towards some worthy goal and are feeling the whole-bodied drain that it is having on you, I encourage you to persevere, keep it up, and make it happen. You’ll be happy that you did.
-Rusty