Here’s the scenario: life throws you a curve ball. Things don’t go your way. You suffer an embarrassing moment in front of colleagues, your spouse or your kids. You lose the deal, the game, the promotion, or the moment. The other guy wins. You failed. What are your responses?
Yes, I believe there is more than one. Of course, you’ll have an immediate response. However, the sting of losing can linger near term, long term, and for life. How do you react?
I’ve certainly lost out a few times. It’s a natural part of a competitive commerce model. The chance to win or lose is all around us.
The key question is a very simple one… Do you become Bitter or Better?
Bitter
Do you get bitter over the issue? Will you allow anger or other negative emotions to rule the little place in that video library of your mind? Every time the mention of that moment comes up, will you lash out, thinking or making very vile comments, turning red, and huffing off to simmer in the juices of self-pity all over again? Do you let relationships suffer over that moment?
Sometimes people make a vow to “never let that happen again”.
Staying bitter over the issue has no real positive effects at all. Being bitter has been proven to impact your health. Blood pressure, ulcers, and other factors can build over time as we stew over the bad thoughts and bitterness caused by losing moments.
Those who study emotional intelligence will tell you the way you shift out of being bitter and the speed at which you do it is an indicator of your emotional intelligence scale.
Better
Or are you the kind of person that will make it better? By better, I am talking about assessing the whole truth of the circumstance openly and objectively. Then finding a nugget of gold with which you may prosper by changing some area of your life and thinking:
- your technical/professional knowledge
- your behaviors
- your emotions
By making one or all of these choices, the next time something similar arises, (and it will), you can respond in a much more positive way.
John Maxwell says:
Experience is not good learning. Only informed learning from experience teaches us new things.
Being better also means forgiving any person or group who may have been the source of the bad moment. That little mental video I mentioned should not include the replay of the look on someone else’s face when they “got you”.
Let it go. Be BETTER!
