You must be mentally prepared to suffer defeat.
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:3-5
It will not matter how you conduct yourself while you are winning, it only matters how you act after you have lost.
Defeat is where the true personality of man shows its ugliness to the world.
Have you ever seen a young child lose at a game and then proceed to embarrass his parents with his behavior? It happens very often. What is even more unfortunate is that fact that many of the kids never grow out of this behavior. They take their weak mentalities onto the sports field and display just how immature they are after they lose.
Then they grow up and take that mentality into the workplace. They never take responsibility for their failures and always pass the blame. Everyone knows one of these men, and they were created by their parents who failed to teach them to accept defeat graciously and with strong character.
We often fail to act righteously and we sin. Sometimes we are caught and our sin is publicized. This is public humiliation and defeat. How do we conduct ourselves during this defeat? Do we exhibit grace, humility and repentance? Or do we manifest anger, ego and further rebelliousness? Answer these questions and you will discover everything about yourself that you will ever need to know. How you behave in defeat is an open window into your character. So you must prepare yourself not only for defeat, but also to conduct yourself like a man when you find yourself defeated.
Defeat is inevitable, but acting like an idiot while we are defeated is something we can control and avoid.
By acting graciously we show that we are men of character and add bricks to our reputation. We can convert a defeat into a great victory simply by conducting ourselves like men while we are defeated. All failures have the potential to profit us if we learn to use humility and build our character. Defeat is the foundation of victory.
Mantra
Train until virtue is automated.
Application
In every victory you should be mentally preparing yourself for defeat. Just as in the moments of happiness you must prepare yourself for depression. You have to stockpile supplies in your mind to outlast defeat. Decide how you will conduct yourself during defeat before you are ever defeated. Have your programmed behavior ready to go so that when you suffer a defeat you do not have to think about what to do, you can fall back on your plans and training and conduct yourself well. Many vices can be cured by this simple method: train. Train yourself to have the actions you want without having to think about. Then when you are in the situation you trained for, you can shift your mind to autopilot and shut down the ego immediately.
“We do not rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training”
Archilochus
Stockpile your actions and practice them as a musician practices scales until they can be performed unconsciously.
Keep your mind vigilant and prepared.
Focus your mind on being a man of character.
Annihilate the adversary.
Remember who you represent.
Conduct yourself like men.