Have you ever heard about someone who just happens to succeed on their first attempt? When they achieve success, we tend to think of them as talented or gifted with special skills. And although that’s true to some extent, we keep forgetting the process they had to endure.
Think of an artist you deeply admire. Their album seems to sell out whenever they release it. And they have a huge following from around the world. They’re an idol to so many people.
Sometimes, when we look at these people and hear about their success stories, we wonder: How did they seem to get everything on their first try?
The other day, I was watching some YouTube videos centered around a similar topic. These YouTubers all shared their observations and insights, but one of these insights stood out to me.
One of them mentioned their number of followers and the growth of their channel throughout the past year. They continued to gain followers exponentially. However, when you look at the amount of video uploads on their channel, you’ll realize that they haven’t uploaded as many videos as expected.
But this YouTuber soon clarified the misconceptions. They mentioned that they had unlisted some videos. Also, they have created other channels in the past, hoping they’ll achieve success one day. Many of these attempts didn’t work, so they had to learn from other YouTubers.
Therefore, to gain subscribers, some of these YouTubers enrolled in courses to learn the craft. They wanted to study the search engine immensely to ensure that their videos were filtered through the web in a specific manner, generating plenty of views.
But as humans, we often forget about the process before success.
We tend to look at the final picture and think the person somehow got lucky to piece life’s puzzles together. But then, we don’t see what happens on a deeper level; we don’t think about the failed attempts, the missed shots, and the poor decisions.
Even in class, when we are forced to present a topic, some students seem naturally good at public speaking. However, we need to realize that the student may have had previous experience in similar roles, which made them more comfortable in front of the audience.
The reality is that most of these people we deem talented didn’t get what they wanted on the first try. Instead, they had to keep honing their craft until they gained recognition.
No one in this world has an overnight success story. For success to transpire, one has to go through a grueling process of hard work, challenges, and failures. However, we have to consider this part of the equation as we continuously shame on failure. For success to happen, there must be a process of failure. Failure allows us to learn our lessons and realize that, perhaps, we’ll face our fair share of success one day.
Featured image via Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash
