Thursday, December 19, 2013

Thought For The Day - The Downs Teach You Even More Than The Highs

I read somewhere how a particular champion team selects its players. It picks those who have seen a down in their career, life, a failure. I agree with their thought process - I think it is important for us to learn from the downs.

Not just that, I think we need to be grateful for the downs because they are our best teachers. They improve us, give feedback toughen us up, makes us better. They are the one who take us to the next level by testing us objectively.
The highs on the other hand are not about good luck as most seem to believe. Success is a result of several things coming together - mostly your own mindset. In every good luck moment if you analyse, you will find certain factors that came together. Understand that, apply it again and voila, you may find Ms. Good Luck again. Analyse your good lucks and highs because they have a wonderful lesson.

In both circumstances many forget to understand the process behind it all. In the downs or failures, instead of deconstructing the failure to see what went wrong and where one was lacking, many choose the easy route of blaming, finding excuses and not learning. They refuse to budge from the position that they are perfect - the rest of the environment is at fault. Obviously the results are clearly indicating otherwise. The way to deal with failure is to be honest, accept failure, learn from it, deconstruct it, figure out the areas to work at, work on them with purpose and focus and come back an improved person. Then there is hope. Else the road ends.

In success also one tends to lose focus. Many times people believe they are lucky and do not give importance to their preparation, their earnestness, their need to learn, to excel, the quality of people who taught them. As long as they feel that it is merely luck, they are also susceptible to danger because they do not know the process either. The day it all unravels due to one aspect not being understood, the person will not know how to self-correct before it is too late. Hence even in success one needs to know what they are going right, by maintaining journals etc.

It is easier to learn from failure because the failure hurts. One knows clearly that one is not good enough. The problem is with success. Here the problems creep in slowly so it is difficult to find them out before it is too late, unless one is very aware and looking out for signs.

In both cases, however, a growth and learning oriented mindset is the key to sustain an improved and high level of performance. One who is in that mindset will be grateful to the failures. And the successes. They are after all, your best teachers.

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