Feel the Burn!!

Someone close to me recently suffered a disappointment and I could see the effect it had on them.  It produced an understandable reaction, because it brought into question their whole future and dream and what they believed would be in their near future, with relative certainty, but it made me realise ever more that the recipe to success lies not just in our own expectation and beliefs, but in outside factors, over which we have little or no control.  It is impossible when dealing with a setback not to have feelings of uncertainty and confusion, but it should alter the factors we can control and over which we have power and dominion.  These are the things that we can focus on and get stronger and more emotionally ready to face future challenges.  Talent may be a gift, but it is not a right of passage to success.  Nor is physical health, discipline, skill or  even faith.  It takes a complete combination of various ingredients, regular practise and lucky moments to end up in the right place at the right time.  Take Tiger Woods for example, he has immense talent and from a very young age he set about the golf world, with raw talent and a competitive edge. Nothing could stop him, from breaking record upon record and he was quickly regarded as the greatest golfer of all time.  Breaking every record was so easily within his grasp (it was just a matter of time),  until a series of events unfolded in his life, which took him on a journey where as recently as yesterday he shot the worst score of his professional career and missed the cut.  How is this possible? He had a series of circumstances, some of which were in his sphere of influence and over which he should have exercised control but didn't, there were injuries which he could not have easily have foreseen, but in hindsight may have looked more after his body, when he was young and swinging without thought or fear of injury and then he let things in his personal life, be affected by fame and wealth.  I am still convinced that he will eventually go on to break every record in golf, but he does not have it to himself any longer.  He needs to go back to the place he was in before the setback started, re evaluate and extract the things, that he had, that got him to the top in the first place. To stop trying to change everything he previously did and live the game and remember the time when he was unbeatable.  He needs to draw close to those that made him rise and enjoy what he has right in front of him.  In the movie Noting Hill there is a scene where Julia Robert says to Hugh Grant that though she is a famous actress, she is just a girl standing in front of a boy telling him that she loves him.  That is good advice to take in life when dealing with a setback to go back to a happy place and start again and stick to the things that make us happy and pour our passion into the people and circumstances that really make us thrive and achieve.  Do what you can to be happy and do the things or have the relationships that remind you of a time of success and prosperity.