Choosing your possibilities | © Fola Daniel Adelesi

When a child starts making the efforts to walk, that child is faced with two possibilities. The first is the possibility of falling after a few steps and the other is the possibility of strengthening the legs and being able to walk. But that’s a child – she hasn’t learnt how to be afraid like most of us adults. I think that’s why most children can walk.

If some of us were born as adults, fear would never let us walk. Once we fall a few times, that would be the end of the whole attempt to walk. But it is not the same for a child. So every child is faced with the possibility of falling and the possibility of walking. They somehow find out that falling can be painful. They can get hurt and that may leave some scars on their bodies but it just does not stop the children from making the efforts to walk.

There’s a lesson there and that’s what we all must learn and begin to work with for the rest of our lives if we will ever go far. When faced with the possibility of failing, you should never be so scared that the same thing presents you with the possibility of succeeding. Yes, you may fall a few times like babies but you will eventually walk. You may have a few challenges on the way and that’s expected but that should not stop you from facing the possibility of succeeding.

There are too many who are focusing on the chances of failing rather than the chances of succeeding. If there are ten different opportunities to succeed ahead of them and there is one chance of failing, they will focus on the chance of failing and choose not to do anything.

Remember that for the child, falling may be hard but it does strengthen the child in some way. So failing may come with some pains or even shame but it strengthens you. As you fail, you learn and are becoming more equipped for other things. You are becoming more qualified to get certain things that you have always wanted.

You should never choose temporary comfort over the pain that will eventually produce the long term comfort that you need. Each time you choose not to go through the pains you are seeing, which means you are focusing on the possibility of failure rather than the possibility of success, you are simply delaying and compounding the pains that you will eventually go through.

When you take a look at life generally, there’s hardly anything good that does not come through some form of pains. These pains may not be pains on your body. The pains may be some sacrifices that you have to make. There could be something that causes you to lose sleep for some time. There could something that will place some demands on your finances. Some other things will demand that you work extra hard to get things done. Once you yield to these demands, you will eventually see, though you already knew this, that the demands always seem long but are temporary.

Weighing your possibilities

When faced with a choice that comes with some pains or huge demands, ask yourself the following questions:

  1. What will this pain or sacrifice produce for me at the end of it all?
  2. After going through the pain, how does it take me closer to my goal in life?
  3. Are there life lessons to be learnt from the pains or sacrifices?
  4. What will I be able to leverage on from the pains and sacrifices to be made?
  5. If I don’t make the sacrifices now or go through the pains, what is at stake?
  6. Will I have to forfeit a great goal or ambition in order to avoid this pain or sacrifice?
  7. Ten years down the line, will I regret this decision I am about to take today?

It will be very important to ask these questions in order to decide on facing the possibility of failing or facing the possibility of succeeding. Don’t forget that a child is faced with the possibility of stumbling but still focuses on the possibility of walking. Which possibility are you focusing on?


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