3 Simple Strategies for Never Losing Out Again
Life is full of ups and downs and sometimes has a few sideways
thrown in too. When things go wrong or don't go as planned, or
when something happens to throw us off balance and doubt
ourselves it can be tough to deal with. After all, we all want
things to go well and to end up as 'winners'. But life will
always throw challenges at us, and we can't control everything.
Nor should we try. It's not what happens to you but what you
do with what happens to you that makes the difference. Here
are three easy ways that you can always come out on top.
1. Focus on Your Strengths
We're a bunch of contradictions - sorry to break it to you.
Sometimes happy, sometimes sad; sometimes hopeful, sometimes
pessimistic; sometimes childish and sometimes mature. We also
have a whole load of strengths and weaknesses that affect what
we do and how we do it, but tend to put more focus on our
weaknesses and not our strengths.
A strength is something that you do consistently well or at a
near-perfect level of performance - it's something you're
just able to do, you're hard-wired to do it well and you get an
inherent satisfaction from doing it. It could be tackling
and solving complex problems, empathising with people, having a
lively imagination or being able to make the perfect omelette.
Focusing on what you do well rather than what you're not so
good at makes all kinds of sense. When you look at what you're
not good at you feel bad about yourself and your ability, but
when you focus on and play to your strengths you're
guaranteed to get results, and can even eliminate any negative
effect your weaknesses might have.
There was a guy I worked with who hated public speaking and
recognised that it was one of his weaknesses. He worked as an
advertising executive and as he climbed the ladder he found he
had to do more and more presentations - he'd stutter, freeze,
forget his point and not perform at his best at all. But when we
focused on his strengths we found that he had amazing social
skills, an ability to establish great rapport with people in no
time at all and had a fantastic sense of humour. Using those
strengths he was able to connect easily with each person in his
audience, enjoy himself a whole lot more and to deliver
presentations that had fun, humour and warmth in them. He used
his strengths to overwhelm his weaknesses and went from strength
to strength himself.
2. Set Things Up Ahead Of Time
Sure, there will be times when you can just head into something,
do brilliantly at it and get the result you were hoping for
(normally if you're playing to your strengths), but other times
you might blunder forwards, wing it and not get the result you
wanted. Whatever challenges or opportunities you're facing
you'll stand a much better chance of getting a great result if
you set things up to succeed ahead of time.
So what exactly do you want to happen? What solution, outcome
or result would be great? Get really clear on the outcome you
want from what's facing you and how it would feel to get the
outcome you're looking for. Then start breaking it down -
what can you do to set things up so that your desired outcome
happens? What needs to be put in place? What will help to
make what you want to happen, happen? And to ensure the best
outcome, what are you willing to do?
Whatever faces you, it's possible to get the result you want by
being crystal clear about the kind of result you want and by
putting effort into setting things up so that it happens. Look
at this way - you're infinitely more likely to get your most
wanted result by putting time or effort into setting things up
ahead of time than if you don't. Your choice.
3. There's No Such Thing as Losing Anyway
What's life all about, really? Getting a good job, getting
married, feeling valued, having fun? It's about different things
to different people, but to boil it down I think it's about
doing the best we can to have, do and be the best for ourselves
and those we care about. Sometimes it's a struggle and sometimes
it's a joy, but what is constant through it all is our capacity
to learn, develop and grow. Humans have an unparalleled
ability to learn and adapt, which is exactly why we're able
to do the best we can and find ways to have, do and be more.
That's why everything you do takes you one step forwards and
it's only by doing one thing, then another and another that
the most astounding things in our world came about. As
Thomas Edison said while he was on his 207th prototype for the
electric light bulb - 'I am not discouraged, because every
wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.' He's
absolutely right - everything you do that doesn't work out is
another tick in another box and another step forwards, because
you know one more way not to do something and what not to do
next time. You'll never get to 100% without going from 1% to
99% first.
In all that you do, whether it turns out how you wanted it to
or not, there's the capacity for learning. That means that it's
all part of the process and everything that you do and learn
is an important step forwards.
There's no such thing as losing, only learning and growing. So
here's to your continued success!