In 2012, when I was coaching the University of Kentucky women’s basketball team, we came in first in the SEC at the end of the season. Our record for the year was 13-3. But we also lost our game against Alabama – the team that finished last that season at 3-13. Worst beat first.
As that old sports adage goes, “On any given night…”
I mean no disrespect to Alabama, but in that particular season I’d rather have been us, no matter the outcome of one game. Fundamentally, whatever rare upset we suffered, our belief in our ability to maintain sustained success didn’t waver. Of course we weren’t happy to have lost against Alabama, but our filters on our thought processes around defeat were healthy.
Real Success Should Never Be Defined By Short-Term Results
Sports upsets happen all the time, whether during the regular season or in championship games. But what makes a great team, whether in sports or in business, is never one single outcome or result, or even a handful of them.
Pause for a moment and think of a recent loss or setback you had in your work life. It could be big or small. Was there something you could have reasonably done to avoid it or some way you could have generated a different outcome? How did you handle it emotionally and how did you think about it? Did you beat yourself up with negative self-talk? Did you let it roll a little too quickly off your back and not take any lesson from it?
The quality that makes a Hall of Famer comes down to a mindset that empowers them to achieve sustained success. They’ve created the habit of mind to always drive toward excellence. Because excellence is their modus operandi – or how they operate, they’re driven to prepare at maximum capacity.
Developing The Right Mindset
One of the key reasons the right mindset is so important is that it keeps you from wasting energy on unproductive activities. Whether your reaction takes the form of a personal pity party or a relentless inward chewing out, you’re robbing yourself of time and energy you could be spending getting ready to win the next time. But in overreacting to setbacks you’re wasting energy focused on the outcome instead of thinking, “What can I do to become better prepared for the next situation?”
Instead of drowning in unproductive negativity, I recommend honestly analyzing a defeat for what you can learn from it. Learning to do this equips you with a valuable tool to improve your performance for the next time. You’ll move onto your next challenge with the confidence gained from a lesson learned, not with pointless self-criticism that leaves you feeling less confident.
If you realize that you have a bad mental filter for how you process defeats, you can change it. You can develop a mindset for sustained success, and the stronger you exercise that mindset, the further you will go.
During the next week or so, pay close attention to the conversation going on in your head while at work or training or playing your sport. Make a conscious effort to look at how you process challenges that arise.
- How much time do you spend complaining, either out loud or in your head?
- How much time do you spend worrying about circumstances that you can’t control?
- Do you frequently think chaotically, as if you’re fighting one brush fire after another?
If these are your mental habits, you’ve convinced yourself that circumstances are outside of your control.
The way out of such victim mentality is to put a stop to your negative thoughts. Interrupt those self-defeating patterns and retrain your brain in new habits.
Develop the mindset needed to succeed through these actions:
- Decide how to respond. When you start complaining, stop and make a list of what practical changes you could make to respond to the situation.
- Focus in on one action. When you catch yourself worrying about circumstances beyond your control, interrupt yourself and ask: What’s one action I could take right now to address my work challenge? And then take that action. Your mind will shift from worry to practical action and will spike your confidence.
- Determine tangible solutions.If you find yourself always barraged by problems and continuously fighting fires, ask yourself: How could I categorize these problems and solve them permanently? Cut through temporary solutions and find clarity that allows for genuine progress toward permanent solutions.
- Tame the conversation in your head. The content that you feed your mind holds sway over your mindset. Train yourself to notice the content that you’re feeding your brain. If it’s all about complaints and annoyances from external forces, that’s like feeding your brain a steady diet of junk food. Choose to feed your brain in a way that builds the mindset for an unwavering pursuit of excellence.
Mastering your thought process will give you the mindset that lets you crush self-defeating thoughts and keeps you driving in the direction of sustained success.
Author Bio
Matthew Mitchell is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author, speaker, three-time SEC Coach of the Year, and the winningest head coach in the history of the University of Kentucky women’s basketball program.
He now coaches the University of Houston’s women’s division 1 basketball team. Mitchell’s new book, Ready to Win: How Great Leaders Succeed Through Preparation (Winning Tools, November 19, 2024) – already a USA Today bestseller – shares proven principles that lead to resilience, preparation, and growth.
Learn more at www.coachmatthewmitchell.com.
