Thursday, October 23

How-To: Lose…


I'm a computer geek; just ask anyone who knows me. In the computer world, we have instruction manuals for just about everything. We call them How-To's. They usually give you a step-by-step formula that you can apply or modify to diagnose, fix, or understand just about anything in computers.

Today…I'm going to give you a How-To about losing. :-)

Why? Because I don't care WHO you are, WHERE you come from, or WHAT you do…at some point, you WILL lose. No one spends his whole life with nothing but success.

But, why learn how to lose? What's the point?

Simple. Once you learn how to lose, you can weather it more easily when you DO happen to lose, and you'll be better able to turn your loss into a success.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill

We spend hours and hours and even days and months learning how to succeed. Our self-help section of the bookstore is weighed down with tome upon tome of thoughts on how to succeed. Hell…it's a billion dollar business now. So, we ALL know that success IS possible. Funny thing is…we never learn how to lose and not be broken.

So many people, when they fail, simply give up or allow themselves to be derailed or broken. I think that it's a result of our Age. We expect EVERYTHING to work right the first time, in only about 30 seconds. Most people have lost the idea of working till you succeed.

NOTHING in this world, or nothing good, comes easily and without work on your part. Struggle is a guarantee in the race for success in any area.

The idea in general is to adopt the same mentality as a baby. If you ever get a chance, watch a baby learning to walk. He will fail 100 times and NEVER give up. He simply tries again and works, until he succeeds.

When asked if he would give up after 'failing' 700 times to create the filament for the light bulb… Edison responded that he did not fail, but instead discovered 700 ways that didn't work. For me, each failed build brings me closer.

Every failure is a time for you to learn. You look at what happened, what you did, how you planned, etc., and the next time, you are able to put that learning into practice and come closer to success. Let's look at a few thoughts about a losing attitude.

• Accepting that failing isn't the end, but rather a stopping point to reevaluate
• Willing to try anything and as many times as it takes to succeed
• Not locked into any particular mindset
• Happy, because they know that one more wrong option is taken off the table

Remember that the ONLY time you ever lose is when you quit before you succeed. No one can force you to lose; it's a choice that you make for yourself. Chose instead to fight…until you break through and stand in the sunshine of success.

"It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired." - Robert Strauss

1 comment:

Susan said...

Hmm, Google is still acting up. I'll try this again. I don't think of you as a computer geek. No one should ask me. Some of my biggest losses turned out to be the greatest gains. . . later. =)