Playing the Game of Life when Dealt a Poor Hand

 

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."  Winston Churchill

 

Learn How to Play a Poor Hand Well

What's happening in your life right now? Do you feel you're failing in some aspect of your life? Are you harboring a secret failure you're hiding from others in shame? Are you off somewhere licking your wounds? Do you feel life has recently dealt you a poor hand?

 Listen up!  The trick to doing well in the game of life isn't to be dealt a good hand. It's to learn how to play a poor hand well and to stay in the game.

You may think those who do well in life do so because they're smart or just plain lucky. While smarts or luck can help, they're not the key. Knowing how to bounce back and enthusiastically reengage in your life after a set back is. 

Playing the game of life well when you're dealt a poor hand is all about being street smart--i.e. knowing how to survive and thrive by getting back into the game after a loss. Always shake yourself off and prepare to play your next card.

 

Are You Flailing?

Many moons ago, the B.C. cartoonist captured the essence of our usual, but unnecessary, response to failure in one of his cartoons: "Flail: The opposite of slucceed." 

Too often we treat failure as a crime worthy of a mental flailing. After you beat yourself up, it may take days, weeks or months to get over the pain of that mental flailing. And while you waste time feeling guilty, frustrated, and sorry for yourself, you fail to take the next step to get on with life.

To win at the game of life, you must let go of prolonged mental flailing (okay--indulge in a little if you must) and wound licking, and learn from your failures and losses instead. Resiliency is the name of the game when it comes to living the best life. 

Play life as if you always have another card up your sleeve to play, and stay in the game.

Keep Aiming for The Best Outcomes

How are you dealing with a poor hand today? Are you afraid of falling short so you're having a hard time heading down a new path? Do you expect no less than perfection from yourself or life? Are you having a difficult time taking risks because you must guarantee success before you take the first step?

Let it go.

Don't let the fear of failure lead you to perfectionist thinking, and ultimately to getting stuck. Perfectionist thinking leads to procrastination which leads to paralysis of spirit.

If you're too afraid you'll make a mistake, you'll never throw your hat in the ring. Learn to use your set backs like top achievers do--as learning experiences and adjust as you go.

 

Playing Through

✅ Choose to see failures as learning experiences

✅ What could I do better next time?

✅ What can I improve upon now?

✅ What's the most important question for me to ask myself now?

✅ How do I turn this into a beginning, not an ending?

✅ What's the takeaway?

 

✅ Take steps without worrying about the results or outcomes. Run experiments.

✅ When things don't turn out the way you want, consider how to adjust then play through. Take a step--any step--and see what happens. 

 ✅ Expect and welcome learning experiences. You're stagnating if you're not failing some of the time. 

"The only difference between winners and losers is winners lose more often but they stay in the game."  Terry Paulsen