At times, we’re perched for success.  Everything seems to be going our way, and those closest to us assure us there’s no way we won’t win our goal.  With great eagerness and a little anxiety, we shoot for our star—and miss.  By one.  Rather than the win we’d hoped for, we come in second.

To us, this feels like failure.  That’s a really good reason to give less weight to our emotional responses and more weight to our logical, critical-thinking responses.

It takes us a bit to get beyond the emotional letdown.  Some say days.  Others say months.  And the rare individual says you never get over it.  I say give it five minutes.  Rant and rail at the unfairness of life, and then let it go.  Why?  Because five minutes is all the emotional rant is worth.  Beyond that, it is stealing time away from the constructive and good that can come from second place anything.

We all work hard, we give all we’ve got to win, to succeed—as we define success.  So when we don’t, we react.  The sooner we get beyond the reaction stage and into the analytical stage—as in, why didn’t we win—the sooner we can figure out where we need to improve.

Recognizing that and accepting it is critical to our future and whether or not we ever achieve our winning/success goal.  Emotions deserve their due, of course.  But so does taking a hard look at how we can do better.  Which do you think deserves the lion’s share of your time?

The one that is over and done and will never change?

Or the one that is yet to be and can be altered to best serve us and those for whom we do what we do?

Those are the questions I ask myself, and the answers taught me to not mourn losses but to learn from them.  Each new skill is a tool that can be the key tool needed to climb to the next rung on your personal ladder.  

That ladder might be in your job, in the way you go about your work.  It might also be in how you relate to your spouse or your kids.  We logically know children are not one-size-fits-all when it comes to what works to get through to them, for them to grasp the life lesson or value of what we’re trying to get across to them.  What works for your eldest might be totally wrong for what works with your youngest. 

The same is true of us and how we process and relate to ourselves.  One of the saddest things I’ve seen in my professional life was an author sobbing her heart out because she’d submitted a book to a publisher and been rejected.  This was months after she had received the letter and she’d been so devastated that she hadn’t been able to write a word in all that time.

The first question in my mind was, “Why is she giving one editor that kind of power over her?”  The next was, “What exactly did the editor say?”

As it turns out, the editor had given her great feedback on exactly why she had rejected the book—and that is no small thing!  Obviously, if the writer had known this about her own work, she would have fixed it before submitting.  She was gifted a treasure!  But the author was so upset, she failed to grasp that, and her forward momentum crashed to a halt.

My point is, we all have much to learn about everything.  If we’re open to it, the learning can reach us more easily than if we’re resistant.  It will come, as it did with the author, but it’s up to us to recognize it, seize the good in it, and then use it.

May you always see the value in coming in second and gain what you need to propel you to your vision of success in all you do.

Blessings,

Vicki Hinze

PS. In November, my new thriller, NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE will be released. I can’t wait!