Tuesday, April 6, 2010

When winning just doesn't happen



The stage was set for a beautiful ending. The ball was sent on it's way, it hits the backboard & then the rim. Then it falls harmlessly to the floor & the fairytale ending we all hoped for doesn't happen. As many of you know the Butler Bulldogs fell a little short last night. I'm incredibly proud of them & the effort they put forward. Butler was a shinning example for the city of Indianapolis, the state of Indiana & College basketball in general. Duke had won their previous 5 games in the tournament by an average of of 16.6 points, they beat Butler by 2. I congratulate Duke they played a great game & they were able to make the shots when they had to.

So what does this have to do with finding more joy? Yesterday, we discussed how sometimes in life you're the underdog & that your attitude can make the difference. But, what happens in life when you just don't win. When you just don't get the victory? To me these are the moments that define us. It's not when we win, it's not when everything is going our way. It's when we think we should win, when we expect to win & we don't. It can be life changing; but the true result of not winning is completely up to you.

The heartache of losing can be overwhelming & if we allow it, it can bring you crashing down to a very negative place. So how do we move beyond the pain of losing? The first step is time. Take some time & allow yourself to feel & understand what happened. Time is an amazing healer when things don't go our way. Allowing ourselves to move away from the moment of heartache can slowly blur the moment enough that it doesn't hurt as bad.

The next step is the most important. Evaluate what happened, learn from the loss. It is through learning that we can move beyond the pain of a loss. There are always lessons in every moment of our life but when things are going well we tend to ignore the lesson & just ride the wave. When we lose it's very important to be honest with ourselves & to understand what happened. There maybe times when we didn't do anything wrong. We truly did our best & we just lost, it happens. Other times, if we're honest, we can discover why things happened the way they did.

The truth is no matter how badly you want something to happen in your life. There will always be losses. If we learn and grow from these losses we become better people. Sometimes losing can actually open our eyes to a new possibility. The lessons we learn can change our life. The truth is you may have been ignoring it while things we're going well. Maybe we didn't even truly want what we thought we wanted or maybe the success we thought we had in hand was only for our EGO.

The willingness to learn & grow when things don't go our way can be the most important thing we can do in our life. The ability to move beyond the negative and discover joy even in the darkest moments, will open the universe to all possibilities. It is through the process of learning that we will discover the messages of God/universe & find true joy in our life!

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day:"When winning doesn't happen. Learn from the loss & open your heart to the messages of God/universe. By listening with an open heart we will discover more joy then we can imagine."






Visit the National Gallery of Writing

2 comments:

Mansi said...

Thanks, Bill. I wrote my blog post today somewhat on the same subject and as I went to post it on the various FB groups, noticed this. Funny how we were on a somewhat similar wavelength...
I love this quote by Chris Evert: “If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that is a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life.” It's all about attitude and, as you very aptly said, "the willingness to learn and grow when things don't go our way can be the most important thing we can do in our life." Well said, my friend. Well said.

Timberwolf123 said...

Thanks Mansi, I appreciate your comments. It is always interesting to me when several of us pick the same subject to me it means that there's a bigger message that needs to be communicated to the world & each of us needs to do our part because everyone learns differently.

I'm sorry i didn't read your post I've been behind because of all the writing I'm doing.

Hugs,

Bill