Failure is Not the End of the Road

My girlfriend and I are "American Idol" (FOX) junkies. We promise to stop watching year after year, but we keep going back. This is the first year that she watched the auditions, which happens to be my favorite part of the series. The phrase that always bothered me is when a contestant says, "This means everything to me." Are you serious?! It's this contest or nothing? First of all, "American Idol" is not a contest. "American Idol" is a televised audition. Let's get that's get that straight first. If you say things like, "This means everything to me," or "My life depends on it," you are saying your success is not dependent on you. You are saying you don't already consider yourself a success. You are basically giving your power to someone else to decide your fate. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If you believe that a single audition, interview, game, or contest will be the deciding point on whether or not you move forward in your chosen path, you are setting yourself up for failure. Don't get me wrong, you should always give it your best shot as if it were your last audition, but you should never believe that your life will depend on it. It doesn't. Don't give the power to determine your fate to someone else. Be in your own power. Believe in yourself. Failure is not the end of the road. It is merely a small bump on your road toward your goal.