In life sometimes you find yourself facing failure. You may have tried your hand at something, had really high expectations and it just didn’t work out. It may be a marriage, a job, a business venture a partnership … you just never know what life can throw you sometimes. You can however begin to move forward out of the darkness by making some tough choices.

If nobody cares about you… care about yourself

Hating yourself for your mistakes is not helpful. As a matter of fact it’s dangerous. When you decide to take responsibility for your failure and own up to it… then yes it’s a time for understanding the failure and dealing with it. However, you don’t dwell on it and remind yourself of it. When through poor decisions or just bad circumstances you wind up in a ditch the first thing you must do is recognise that you may have been a dumbass but that does not exclude you from the race. It doesn’t mean you will win next time either. What it does mean is that you have to accept the fact that you tried. As I have said before… the problem with society is that we place such a high premium on success that we deride people who fail. As I have heard Edward Debono say, “There is no word in the English language which says perfectly acceptable venture that for reasons outside of the control of the individual went poorly!” Accept that you made a mistake but don’t hate yourself for it. Learn the day to day activity of forgiving yourself by remembering all the good things you have.

Look for the good in your situation

I know of people who have had kidney failure and lost everything during the recovery process. People have lost children and spouses. Is there any good to be gained out of that horrible situation? No there isn’t. What you can do over time however is begin to build an inner picture of your life that is worth something. When that cloud begins to settle in, why not think about the wonderful times you had with this person. When people die we miss them terribly and this is good because we should. However, as our heart begins to heal we need to fill our lives once again with positives and focus on what’s good. You may be having problems with money… you may not have a home. Are you breathing with the aid of a machine? How about your legs… do they still work? When you begin to focus on what you have instead of what you have lost… the good things you carry around with you that you take for granted have a new weight of importance.

Darkness breeds even more darkness

When the cloud settles in you begin to think a certain way. After a little while you begin to act that way. Soon, you are saying and doing things you didn’t think you would ever do. Darkness comes to all of us in one way or another. If we allow it to settle in our soul it will make a castle that fortifies and begins to rule our lives. We cannot be like that can we? Dark thoughts are the root system of the tree that poisons your soul. You must take those thoughts captive and replace them with more positive intentions. Easier said than done? Yes in the beginning. However, as you begin to practice you will find it easier. It’s so easy to be a critic. To pick on the efforts of others and drag them down. The internet is rife with examples of people picking on others from the safe proximity of the screenface (Thanks Alison ). What’s hard is to encourage people, to set them on their way and be a light to them.

Tragedy comes to all of us at some point. We should feel the pain of it and yes it should effect us. If it doesn’t then we are not humans. It’s what we do about that pain over time that counts. It’s the day to day thinking and acting that helps us to be what we eventually become. Remember, dark clouds are for a season, yet when the rain passes they disappear. Don’t let the dark clouds hang around you … for too long.

In a previous post I spoke about the problems of life. I want to write briefly today about a way we can walk through problems using a dartboard approach. What is the dartboard approach? In short, the dartboard approach is where you take a best guess as what you should do and take it from there. Also remembering, to let go and just go for it. Here are some of the hallmarks to the [tag]dartboard approach[/tag].

1. When you can’t work out what to do… do something!

If you are stuck for an idea take whatever you can and just straight up go for it.  What’s the worse thing that could happen?  If it involves money take your time and consider your shot before throwing BUT don’t do nothing.  Make a [tag]plan[/tag] that involves you taking some action first.

2. Make sure it’s an educated guess

When thinking through problems you have to look at what your options are and be thinking strategically.  A confident dart player does not simply shut their eyes and hurl the projectile without thought.  They are working off a ‘best guest’ scenario as to what their opponent is thinking.  In short they are sizing up their own plan of attack against what they think is the opponents next move.  There is no answer to what somebody will do next but those that make an [tag]educated guess[/tag] and then take action are more likely to be right than wrong most of the time.

3. Have confidence in your choices 

I would hate to tell you this but most decisions are driven by emotions.  That means, you have a decision you make based on the emotions you have and as a consequence will often favour those.  If you are like me, you have a problem believing in yourself.  This means, most of the time you write something only to receive a criticism from somebody else who drags you down.  Remember, they are not responsible for your decisions… you are.  Listen to good counsel by all means (my next point), but do not allow yourself to be told by someone that you have no right to make choices.  You do have that right.  You should therefore be confident and say to yourself, ‘I made a choice and I am happy with it.’  Be confident and know that your choice is a good educated guess and it’s relevant to you and your situation.

4. Talk to others

When planning and taking action it’s a key thing to remember that you are not alone.  You have people around you that care deeply for you and if you ask them they will help you talk it through.   People are there to help.   If it’s a tough decision talk to them about it if you need a fresh set of eyes.   In a later post I will be speaking about how we can recognise the role emotions play in our lives.

5. Pray

Before I make a big decision I turn to [tag]God[/tag] and ask him to help me.  After all, he is interested.  So I pray and ask for a feeling through my inner man that what I am about to do is right for me.  This works most of the time for me.  Sometimes I get a horrible feeling in my gut and this tells me not to do that thing I was planning.  Other times I feel comfortable or at peace with it… so this helps too.  There are times when my life seems to be going nowhere… if I stop and talk to God about it and write down what I believe he is telling me then I fair a lot better than I do otherwise.

In all of these things it’s important to recognise that life is not certain.  I was not born near a roadmap neither was I handed a list of what I am to do here.  Largely, I believe, it’s us to me what I do and how I travel.  I believe in destiny but at the same time I believe we have a free choice to make.  When I am struggling I resort to this list and it’s helped me greatly.  One time I didn’t know whether I should enrol in a course or not.  So I just enrolled.  I figured that, if I take the chance, I will probably be fine even if I get it wrong.  What happens if I do and I fail? Unless what you are planning to do is dangerous to others… so what?  I have failed at heaps of things and each one of those failures eventually led to an open door somewhere else that became a success.  Am I saying that you have to fail to succeed.  Yes.  So just think about it and throw that dart!

Thanks for reading.  Why not talk about this article in my forum? Alternatively you can leave a comment or talk to me personally about it.