Prepare to Lose

Prepare to lose

No one wants to lose; everyone wants to win. But sooner or later, you lose. If you don’t, your challenges aren’t great enough. Success comes on the trail of failures “IF”, and it’s a strong “IF”, you’re prepared to lose. Because if you are not prepared, loosing will damage your will to win. How do you prepare to lose and still give a 100% to win?

1. Understand that losing is not a character flaw. Cutting corners, cheating the system, not giving true effort, those may speak to your character. But losing “when giving it your best”, is actually admirable. Often you will see more recognition given because of someone’s effort, than the recognition given to the one that won?

2. Prepare hard enough to win that the loss surprises you. In order to lose properly, you need to be totally confident in your ability to win. No expectation of loosing. Then allow the surprise to ignite a desire for the information you did not know. Remember, sometimes you do not know, what you did not know. (Might want to read that again) that being the case, you’ve now discovered a new level of preparation.

3. Acknowledge, accept, and respect the effort, knowledge, and wisdom that it took to beat you. If they beat you at your best, then there is a chance to learn and be better than what you believed to be your best. Quite honestly, we may never be at our very best, because there seems to always be more to learn. However, if you maintain ethical practice, prepare with total confidence, and you are willing to learn and apply the new information to your next adventure, then you have prepared to lose.