Some people have funny ideas about success. They think that successful people never suffer defeats or discouragement or setbacks. They equate success with some make-believe perfect life in which nothing ever goes wrong.

 Well, how naïve, how totally and completely unrealistic if we are vainly searching for the classic fairy-tale ending and they lived “happily ever after.” But success is a progressive realization of worthwhile, predetermined personal goals and a very different thing from the Mother Goose concept of perpetual bliss.

 Success in everybody’s life requires conflict, problems, challenges, road blocks and occasional failure in order that the reached goal may be satisfying and rewarding and self-fulfilling. Sometimes it is the knowledge of the bitter taste of defeat that makes winning so exhilarating. It is overcoming, a genuine test of courage, strength, ability, endurance, perseverance and belief that strengthens us and makes us proud of our accomplishments.

 Sometimes we are prone to see and hear and read about successful people without ever realizing that they first had to overcome adversity to earn what they have. The lives of most famous people bear the scars of obstacles and conflicts and struggles.

 Successful people have earned their spot in life, just as you must earn yours. So if you are thinking of all the obstacles and roadblocks that you have and thinking that other people did not have them, erase this from your mind. It is not true. They, too have overcome insurmountable obstacles to attain the success that they enjoy today.

Mary Kay Ash; founder, Mary Kay Cosmetics