How To Turn Defeat Into Victory

The difference between success and failure is found in one’s attitude towards setbacks, handicaps, discouragement, and other disappointing situations.

Five guideposts to help you turn defeat into victory are:

1. Study setbacks to pave your way into success. When you lose, learn, and then go on to win next time.
2. Have the courage to be your own constructive critic. Seek out your faults and weaknesses and then correct them. This makes you a professional.
3. Stop blaming luck. Research each setback. Find out what went wrong. Remember, blaming luck never got anyone where he wanted to go.
4. Blend persistence with experimentation. Stay with your goal but don’t beat your head against a stone wall. Try new approaches. Experiment.
5. Remember, there is a good side in every situation. Find it. See the good side and whip discouragement.

Victory belongs to those that believe in it the most and believe in it the longest.

~Randall Wallace

Taken from ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’ by David J Schwartz.

Think Right Toward People.

• Make yourself lighter to lift. Be likeable. Practice being the kind of person that people like. This wins their support and puts fuel in your success building program.
• Take the initiative in building friendships. Introduce yourself to other people at every opportunity. Make sure you get the other person’s name straight and make certain he gets your name straight too. Drop a personal note to your new friends you want to get to know better.
• Accept human differences and limitations. Don’t expect anyone to be perfect. Remember, the other person has a has a right to be different. And don’t be a reformer.
• Tune in channel P, the Good Thoughts station. Find qualities to like and admire in a person, not things to dislike. And don’t let others prejudice your thinking about a third person. Think positive thoughts towards people and get positive results.
• Practice conversation generosity. Be like successful people. Encourage others to talk. Let the other person talk to you about his views, his opinions. his accomplishments.
• Practice courtesy all the time. It makes other people feel better. It makes you feel better too.
• Don’t blame others when you receive a setback. Remember, how you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you’ve always been.

~TD Jakes.

Make Your Attitudes Your Allies

• Grow the ‘I’m activated’ attitude. Results come in proportion to enthusiasm invested. Three things to do to activate yourself are:

A. Dig into it deeper. When you find yourself disinterested in something, dig in and learn more about it. This sets off enthusiasm.

B. Life up everything about you. Your smile, your handshake, your talk and even your walk. Act alive.

C. Broadcast good news. No one ever accomplished anything positive telling bad news.

• Grow the ‘You are Important’ attitude. People do more for you when you make them feel important. Remember to do these things:

A. Show appreciation at every opportunity. Make people feel important.

B. Call people by name.

• Grow the ‘Service First‘ attitude, and watch money take care of itself. Make it a rule in everything you do, give people more than they expect to get.

People will throw stones at you. Don’t throw them back. Collect them all and build an empire.

Have a great day!

Manage Your Environment

• Be environment-conscious. Just as body diet makes the body, mind diet makes the mind.
• Make your environment work for you, not against you. Don’t let supressive forces – the negative, ‘you can’t do it’ people – make you think defeat.
• Don’t let small thinking people hold you back. Jealous people want to see you stumble. Don’t give them that satisfaction.
• Get your advice from successful people. Your future is important. Never risk it with freelance advisors who are living failures.
• Get plenty of psychological sunshine. Circulate in new groups. Discover new and stimulating things to do.
• Throw thought-poison out of your environment. Avoid gossip. Talk about people, but stay on the positive side.
• Go first class in everything you do. You can’t afford to go any other way.

What surrounds us is what is within us ~ TF Hodge

Taken from ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’ by David J Schwartz