Negative Input is The Only Hurdle In Your Journey to Success
Always be deaf to people who say you cannot make your dreams come true.
One day, frogs decided to organize a competition. This competition aimed to climb on the top of a very high tower.
A group of frogs got together to watch their friends, and the competition started. None of the frogs in the audience believed that the contestants could reach the top of the tower. They all shouted;
“Poor ones! They will never succeed!”
In the end, all but one lost their hope and left the race.
The last frog left in the race managed to reach the top of the tower with great effort and struggle. Other frogs, in amazement, wanted to learn how the frog could succeed. One of the frogs came closer and asked;
“How did you do this?”
At that very moment, they realized that the frog that climbed the high tower was deaf!
You set a goal for yourself or have a dream; you share that with someone close, and instead of motivating feedback, all you hear is that this idea has no scope. It will be a mistake to pursue this. What will be the outcome? In more than fifty percent of cases, people give up their ideas due to negative feedback from others and regret it later.
We all know about J.K. Rowling. We have read about how often her idea was rejected, but she never lost faith in her idea, and everyone saw how good Harry Potter was. The Same thing happened with Hwang Dong-hyuk when he pitched the idea of Squid Games; we all know how successful it has been.
However, not every one of us has that kind of courage and confidence in our plans. Many people need appreciation and positive feedback from people around them. We writers take it to our hearts when our work is rejected. Don’t we?
Constructive criticism should always be welcomed, as it is backed by a good intention “to make our work better”. However, the only way to deal with unnecessary negative criticism is to turn a deaf ear. Even if you have thick skin, negative criticism starts affecting you sooner or later. You start losing confidence in yourself, your work, and your ideas.
Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves — James Clear
Negative input doesn’t always come from the outside. We all have a mean voice in our heads, the voice that takes over in our weak moments, the voice that holds an ugly mirror and shows are flaws through a magnifying glass, the voice that plays our mistakes on repeat mode, the voice which can overshadow everything good about ourselves.
In several cases, and based on my experience, we do not even dare to share our ideas with the world. Because this mean voice doesn’t let us. We come up with an idea, analyze it in our mind, and think about the pros and cons, but before taking any step ahead, our mean voice takes over, and that idea gets rejected right there and then.
A lot of unique ideas are snubbed in the head by our own negative input. Hence, when we talk about turning a deaf ear to negative input, we are not talking about other people only. We need to be careful about our own thoughts as well.
People deal too much with negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things and make them bloom — Thic Nhat Hanh
Let’s get back to the story of deaf frog, and let me break down the story the way I see it:-
- Some of the frogs sitting in the audience may have wanted to compete. However, due to negative input from people around them, they decided to be in the crowd of those humiliating others, afraid of enduring that humiliation.
- The frogs discouraging those who participated in the race were those who never had the idea to arrange such a race and never had that vision to see things differently.
- The frogs making fun of others were those who had nothing better to do so in their idle time; instead of doing something productive, they decided to kill the spirit of others who dared to be different.
- The participants of the race knew what others were going to think about it. Still, they dared to take a step to beat the stereotypical views. They deserve a round of applause for this courage.
- The deaf frog may not be able to hear what others were saying, but he could see when others were giving up on the race. He still chose to run? That is what determination looks like.
- The deaf frog saw the audience’s gestures but thought they were cheering for him. This is what positive thinking does. It changes your perspective towards the situation.
Moral of the Story: Negativity drains you out in terms of energy, hope and courage. When you plan to achieve something, surround yourself with positive input from both outside as well as inside. Even if negativity succeeds to reach you, stay determined to your goal.
The only input that matters is yours. Be mindful of what you are feeding yourself in terms of thoughts.
