Setbacks Follow Success

You’ve got to stay in control of your expectations. Without expectation, it’s very easy to perceive the subtlety of what you do. With expectation, you will always perceive the boundary.

Remember that setbacks always follow success. You never get there. You’ll think, “I’ve arrived.” No, you haven’t. You never get there.

We’ve heard several people say it. “Man, I’m there. I shot great today. I was two birds out of high overall. I’ve arrived. I’m there.”

You’re never there. Setbacks always follow success.

Strive to be someone who, when they have succeeded, really doesn’t look at it as a success, and when they fail, they certainly don’t look at it as a failure. They know if they succeeded that there are things that they could have done better, and they know that if they failed that it’s only a failure if nothing is learned.

Failure, like so much of what we resist in life, is simply nature’s way of expanding and teaching us. Each experience we have yields a treasure of knowledge if we can accept it that way.

If we can accept it that way, failure and setbacks work for you, not against you. What you learn from failure is infinitely more valuable than what you learn from success, and those who succeed are the ones who can weather the storm. Failure cannot be avoided. Seeing failure as an opportunity for improvement makes it more tolerable and will help you relax and figure out how to go beyond your present level of performance.

The unknown is fear’s fuel. When facing a long shot for the first time, you think of almost everything except focusing on the target, focusing on the front at the end. Experience teaches you the process of elimination. Do something, view the result, replicate or change.

 

This is an excerpt from the March 2011 Coaching Hour podcast. You can listen to it and read a written transcript, along with more than 20 years of archived episodes with your Knowledge Vault membership.