You haven’t failed and you’re not going to try, you’re simply on your way.
I know it seems like such a trivial matter, the language we use, but it really isn’t. What we say reveals about what we think and believe, which ultimately illustrates how far we’ll get at anything. We cannot change what we think and believe at the moment we think and believe it, but if we pay attention and live in that moment, we can begin to take back some of that battle ground. We cannot change the present or the past, but we can certainly shape our future. The future is for the taking and it belongs to those who are on their way.
On my way. That’s how you should respond.
When you meet a challenge that got the better of you, you’re simply on your way. Look to where you want to be instead of wallowing in where you are. Getting down, while being down, only digs a deeper hole, from which you will be eventually climb out of anyhow. So why not make the whole smaller? Not dig so much? Why not use language that reflects the reality of the future? You should pay close attention to your language and adjust it, as silly as it might appear to others, because it works.
Look where you want to be, not where you are. In a sense we are just like an airplane. On cross continental flights, the pilot has to aim and navigate beyond his desired destination, otherwise they will end up short, and somewhere they doesn’t wish to be. The pilot has to account for the weather and for the rotation of the earth.
We have to account for our mood, and for the response of the world around us, and that is why it is better to say I am on my way, I will get there someday, it’s just part of the process, bring on the next day, or anything else that speaks favourably and positively about the future.
Language matters. It matters a hellofalot.
It has always mattered, which is why we were so much happier as children. We believed, partially because our language wasn’t developed and we didn’t know the meaning of no or failure for that matter. We pursued what we wanted. We felt our way about the world. We dreamed in all the colours of childhood. We had a great time, and than we learned to muck it up, but using language and projecting the future by what we see in the present.
You cannot project into the future who you are today, or who you were yesterday. You simply have to walk into tomorrow. You have to get there to see what you get and who you become, but in the meantime you are on your way.
Yes, the road is long and windy. The day may be windy and wet. You are not as far along as you thought you would be. You have a few more scars and wrinkles that weren’t there before. But you are not where you were, and you are on your way.
On your way to becoming who you want to be. On your way to achieving what you want to achieve.
If you learn the language of winners, at first without being a winner, you will sound like a winner, but in time and with enough discipline and effort, you will become a winner and you will have found your way.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Marc-Oliver Jodoin.
https://unsplash.com/@marcojodoin
