Dreams or Regrets? The Key to Success

Everybody has things in their life that they wish they would have done differently. The decisions we make during our lives can have unknown and sometimes far reaching effects on our future -both good and bad. One of the biggest keys to a good life is to learn from past failures without letting them destroy your dreams for the future. There are important lessons to be learned from failure, but fear of risk isn't one of them. In order to succeed you must accept risk and generally the bigger the dream the larger the risk.

Before success comes in any man's life he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps, some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do.~ Napoleon Hill

Many of the most successful people in the world have failed in their early ventures, some more than once. Bill Gates, consistently at the top of the list of the world's richest people list, failed miserably with a business designed to analyze automobile traffic flow. The Walt Disney empire started less than spectacularly with an independent studio partnership that collapsed after just one month. Henry Ford went bankrupt with five businesses before he finally made it with the Ford Motor Company.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The reason that some people eventually succeeded and others failed is that they didn't let past regrets destroy their dreams. Instead, they learned from their missteps and kept working toward their goals. It's the dreamers who create a place for themselves in the world. Meanwhile, those who are consumed by past regrets only doom themselves to continued failure.

Failure should be a stepping stone, not a roadblock. Keep your dreams alive.