How to Turn Defeat into Victory

“Fear is a habit; so is self-pity, defeat, anxiety, despair, hopelessness and resignation. You can eliminate all of these negative habits with two simple resolves: I can!! and I will!!”

Each person in the elite corps of successful men has encountered opposition, discouragement, setbacks, personal misfortune. Learn the background of the president of your company or the mayor of your city. Or select any person you consider a real success. When you probe, you’ll discover the individual has overcome big, real obstacles.

“If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.”

It’s impossible to win high level success without meeting opposition, hardship, and setback. But it is possible to use setbacks to propel you forward. Salvage something from every setback. We can turn setbacks into victories. Find the lesson, apply it, and then look back on defeat and smile. Next time things seem to go wrong on the job or at home, calm down and find out what caused the trouble. This is the way to avoid making the same error twice.

We human being are quick to accept full credit for our victories. When we win, we want the world to know about it. But human beings are equally quick to blame someone else for each setback.

Being self-critical is constructive. It helps you to build the personal strength and efficiency needed for success. Blaming others is destructive. You gain absolutely nothing from proving that someone else is wrong. Don’t run away from inadequacies. Be like the real professionals, they seek out their faults and weaknesses, and then correct them. That’s what makes them professionals. Stop blaming luck. Blaming luck never got anyone where he wanted to go.

Persisting in one way is not a guarantee of victory, but persistence blended with experimentation does guarantee success. (Ex. Thomas Edison’s more than 1000’s of light bulb experimentation). Many ambitious people go through life with admirable persistence and show of ambition, but they fail to succeed because they don’t experiments with new approaches. Stay with your goal, but don’t beat your head against a wall. If you aren’t getting results, try a new approach.

“We find that people's beliefs about their efficacy affect the sorts of choices they make in very significant ways. In particular, it affects their levels of motivation and perseverance in the face of obstacles. Most success requires persistent effort, so low self-efficacy becomes a self-limiting process. In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, strung together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.”

Two suggestions for developing greater power to experiment, the ingredient, that when blended with persistence, get results:

1. Tell yourself, “There is a way”. As soon as you tell yourself, “I’m beaten” there’s no way to conquer this problem, but instead believe, “there is a way to solve this problem.” And positive thought rush into your mind to help you find a solution. It’s believing there is a way that is important. Psychologists say, an alcoholic is doomed to alcoholism until he believes he can beat his thirst. A problem, a difficulty, becomes unsolvable only when you think it is unsolvable. Attract solution by believing solutions are possible.

2. Back off and start afresh. Often we stay so close to a problem for so long that we can’t see new solutions or new approaches. When I live with tough design problems for a long stretch, I’ve got to get away and let some new ideas soak in. See the good side and conquer defeat. All things do work together for good if you’ll just develop clear vision. Remember, there is a good side in every situations, find it, see the good side and whip discouragement.