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#1
One’s biggest challenge after a defeat is not in the source of the defeat, but in one’s fear of starting over only to get the same result and to suffer the same pain all over again… I mean…the definition of insanity right? What we forget is that the decision to quit, especially when the target is meaningful, is not the kind of thing you just do once and forget. Much like your first act of murder, the memories of these darkest moments stay with you. Hunting you day and night; And sometimes to some, the mix of regret and shame is so shameful, they purposefully shrink their journey on this earth just so to free themselves from the burden. So they say… When you quit on a meaningful goal you kill a part of yourself, or at the very least put it in a state of suspended animation. That’s why you don’t ever feel at peace when you do it. That’s why you never feel at rest when you do it. And the way back to yourself is by getting over this part of the self that stays in the way and impedes advancement.
#2
One way to trick yourself into starting over or trying again, is by making the cost of it as low as possible. When you accept that it’s ok to fail, and that to try again is a sign of strength instead of weakness? That’s when persistence becomes a part of your spiritual DNA, and you turn into a completely different person. The kind of person to whom dreams exist not only in sleep, but also in real life in the form of concrete and well defined goals.
#3
Go in with a failure budget. Let us set credit of 100, 1000, maybe even 10000 fails? It’s by that regardless of your greatest efforts and desires to win, the first 100 or 1000 attempts will certainly result in failure, that the frustration of defeat can be more easily ignored or tolerated. That way you can guarantee to some degree what we call persistence. Pseudo persistence? The reason why being blindly persistent is so difficult is that one can never be sure this persistence will be rewarded in the end. And just like any other kind of infinity this too is all too heavy to bear. Too big to conceive. Too painful to tolerate. But 100? or again, 1000? That any sufficiently resolute person can bear, conceive, again, tolerate? What I’m trying to say is that it’s much easier to get the wild and rebellious in you on board with anything, when you make it clear that even though there will be pain, the pain will eventually end, and that you might, if you lucky, in addition to the lessons learned also win something in the process. So pick a ridiculously high and realistic number of attempts you can handle. Not too few serendipity doesn’t get a chance to kick in, and high enough you can sleep well at night if at the end of the journey, and after all the invested effort, you still come out the loser and your final decision is to quit.
#4
One of the biggest impediments to starting over lies not within but without. When people’s opinions with regards to your actions matter more than the actions themselves, the decision to give a failed project a second or third try might feel unappealing. Not because you believe the venture will fail but for the fear of sounding and looking crazy for even trying. That’s true madness. To ignore one’s gut feeling for someone else’s logic for the sake of avoiding judgment. Do as you may, but remember that there is no bigger punch in the gut than the feeling of ignoring one’s instincts only to later be proven theoretically correct but empirically wrong. You could have made the right decision if you only believed in yourself enough…for long enough to see results.
It is all about knowledge and experience 😉
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