What Successful People Know About Winning-by: John C. Maxwell (Part #2/2)
3. Losses Create a Gap between I Should and I Did
Winning creates a positive cycle in our lives. When we win, we gain
confidence.
The more confidence we have, the more likely we are to take action when
it’s needed. That inclination to move from knowing to acting often
brings success.
However, losing can also create a cycle
in our lives—a negative one. Losses, especially when they pile up, can
lead to insecurity. When we are insecure, we doubt ourselves. It causes
us to hesitate when making decisions. Even if we know what we should do,
we are reluctant to do it. When such a gap is created and isn’t
overcome, success becomes nearly impossible. If we want to be
successful, we need to bridge that gap.
4. The First Loss Often Isn’t the Biggest Loss
When we experience a loss, we have a
choice. If we immediately respond to it the right way, the loss becomes
smaller to us. However, if we respond the wrong way, or if we fail to
respond at all, that loss becomes greater. And it often leads to other
losses. As the subsequent losses come at us, they seem to become bigger
and bigger, crashing over us like waves in a violent storm. As the
number of losses goes up, our self-confidence goes down.
We make matters worse when we compare
ourselves to others, because we rarely do so on a level playing field.
We either compare our best, including our good intentions, to someone
else’s worst, or we compare our worst to someone else’s best. That can
lead to a negative cycle of self-talk. And the more negative it becomes,
the larger our losses appear to be to us. If our self-talk is angry,
destructive, or guilt producing, we become even less capable of breaking
free of the negative cycle.
If we can overcome an early loss and not
let it become magnified, that can help us move forward. That’s not
always easy to do, but even someone who has faced a very great loss can
learn to do it.
5. Losses Never Leave Us the Same
The number or severity of your losses
isn’t as important as how you experience those losses. Yes, all losses
hurt. And they make an impact on us, an impact that is rarely positive.
Losses change us. But we must not allow them to control us. We can’t let
the fear of looking silly or incompetent paralyze us. We can’t let the
fear of negative consequences keep us from taking risks. Allowing
negative experiences of the past to warp your future is like living in a
coffin. It puts a lid on you and can end your life.
How does one minimize the negative
damage of debilitating losses? First, by letting them go emotionally. If
we want to overcome adversity and keep from being defeated by our
losses, we need to get past them. And then we need to learn from them!
Successful People Turn a Loss into a Gain
If you’re going to lose—and you are
because everyone does—then why not turn it into a gain? How do you do
that? By learning from it. A loss isn’t totally a loss if you learn
something as a result of it. Your losses can come to define you if you
let them. If you stay where a loss leaves you, then eventually you can
get stuck there. But you can choose to change, grow, and learn from your
losses.
That, of course, is not necessarily
easy. A loss doesn’t turn into a lesson unless we work hard to make it
so. Losing gives us an opportunity to learn, but many people do not
seize it. And when they don’t, losing really hurts.
Learning is not easy during down times,
because it requires us to do things that are not natural. It is hard to
smile when we are not happy. It is difficult to respond positively when
numb with defeat. It takes discipline to do the right thing when
everything is going wrong. How can we be emotionally strong when we are
emotionally exhausted? How will we face others when we are humiliated?
How do we get back up when we are continually knocked down?
I wrote
How Successful People Win
to answer these and other questions about learning from losses, because
I believe it can help you win. Most of us need someone to help us
figure out how to do that. If that is your desire—to become a learner
from losses—you need to change the way you look at losses, cultivate
qualities that help you respond to them, and develop the ability to
learn from them. I believe you can do that using this road map:
Cultivate Humility: The Spirit of Learning
Face Reality: The Foundation of Learning
Accept Responsibility: The First Step of Learning
Seek Improvement: The Focus of Learning
Nurture Hope: The Motivation of Learning
Develop Teachability: The Pathway of Learning
Overcome Adversity: The Catalyst for Learning
Expect Problems: Opportunities for Learning
Understand Bad Experiences: The Perspective for Learning
Embrace Change: The Price of Learning
Benefit from Maturity: The Value of Learning
My primary goal in life is adding value
to people. I hope this book will add value to you, teaching you how to
learn from your losses. That’s how successful people win!
