We often times get discouraged. When we encounter failure, or receive disappointing news. Feelings of discouragement always have us thinking that our continued efforts are futile. We might as well give up, what is the point anyway? We all think this way from time to time and in these moments there is a reality that is hard to accept, but is true. You actually do have the ability to choose to not be discouraged. It may not seem that way. You are down and out and thinking – what does it all matter anyway. However you CAN choose to be better – there are some ways to do so. They are mental mind tricks – and they are great to remember when that inevitable discouraged feelings comes around again.
First truth is that your feelings of humiliation caused by failure or discouragements are almost always 100% self induced. In reality, the “people” that you think noticed your failure did not notice at all, or if they did notice did not really put that much stock in it. You are thinking that people are actually considering your failure, when they are not. They moved on seconds after you failed, and you did not. Believe me, they have plenty of their own failures to worry about then to think more then a few seconds about yours.
The best way to learn from failure is to allow yourself to take the time to review what happened and why. An after action review. Be honest with yourself and the reality of the situation. You will, you have to get back up tomorrow and ride at dawn – but for this moment (perhaps one day or less) you can contemplate why you failed and learn from it. You will get stronger and stronger each time you fail, and with less recovery time if you focus on what went wrong, plan what you can do to improve and then wake up the next morning, and go out guns blazing again.
Second truth is you absolutely must accept that failure is a sign of success. The more failure you have, means that you are pushing your limits to failure point. This is where you want to be. As painful as it is, this will cause more growth and at a faster rate. Accept failure. In fact if you want to succeed more, then you need to fail more. This is what causes growth. It is a principle of life. It is probably one of the core things we are on this planet to learn.
Time to heal is ok, but not too much. You want to get to shorter recovery times, but we are not talking weight lifting here. We are talking our emotions. It can be soul wounding to lose, to suck, to not do what we wanted. Consequently, we may need a moment to lick our wounds and wallow in a bit of self pity. Perhaps we should just accept and not feel too bad about talking a small amount of time to emotionally recover from failure. My tip is to set a time. Say to yourself, I am going to use this full day to emotionally heal from this failure and then tomorrow morning, I ride at dawn.
You can decide to be positive about this even though you do not want to. You can choose to decide to be positive. You may not want to , but you most. Make the decision right now to be positive. Refuse the negativity. Spend this emotional recovery time rehearsing to yourself a positive mindset. You are more likely to have good results with a positive attitude. So slap yourself in the face a few times, stare in the mirror and tell yourself to wake the bleep up and go get back at it.
Third Truth is that all successful people have failed and failed often. The difference is that when they failed, they did not choose to remain a failure. You can choose to get back up and go again. You have that power. Remember when they told you that it was going to be hard? Well this is it, right now, this is the hard part. Dig deep and choose. Decide to get going again.
Finally, failure is an opportunity to take a step back and reassess and get yourself organized to attack the problem again. This is why failing is good, you get a chance to rebuild your plan, get back on course and strive to be better next time. Talk to some positive people, share your struggle and go out into the world and try again.
I will see you back here when you fail next time, because you will fail again!
Guy Reams
15 Days Left to 1st Marathon
