HERE’S YOUR GUARANTEE
We love a guarantee, don’t we? Look almost anywhere these days and you’ll find that what you want likely comes with some sort of a guarantee. A satisfaction guarantee. A money-back guarantee. A lifetime guarantee. It’s started to feel like if it can’t be guaranteed, then maybe it’s not worth having.
The problem is, most of the real worthy achievements in life don’t come with a guarantee. Whatever big, important thing you’re dreaming about doing probably includes some inherent element of risk. That’s part of what makes it so alluring, so meaningful...and so scary. There’d be a lot more people in the world trying to do a lot more awesome stuff if it came with a guarantee. I do want you to see here today, though, that while the outcome you’re after is unknown, there are a few things you can count on. Here are some guarantees for your winning pursuit…
1) I guarantee things won’t always be easy. We are pretty good at creating a story in our minds about how we hope our winning performance is gonna look. Unfortunately our version isn't always realistic. We have a tendency to omit some of the challenges we’ll have to face along the way.
It's natural to want to create the most positive possible story in our minds and normal to envision ourselves performing well, coming up clutch, and getting what we want. There’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best, of course, but we do need to make sure we have a plan for handling some adversity, too.
If we haven’t included some adversity in our story, we may feel victimized when it arrives. That’s the loser’s approach. Champions, on the other hand, recognize that anything that’s really worth doing in life will have a significant price to pay, and that overcoming some adversity is built into that price - it’s part of the deal. As Maya Angelou put it, we should be “hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
2) I guarantee some of it, you can’t control. No matter what it is you’re after, there will always be circumstances that exist beyond your control. It might be the choices other people decide to make. It might be conditions that are less than ideal for your performance. It might be a stroke of bad luck that shows up at just the wrong time. Whatever it is, you can bet some uncontrollable circumstances will be there to test you.
I can also guarantee you the more time and attention you devote to those things you can’t control, the less focused you’ll be on those things you can control. No matter the circumstances, you are always in control of your attitude. You are always in control of your effort level. You are always in control of your response to whatever happens, and you are always in control of how you treat people along the way.
This is another way champions separate themselves. Losers dwell on those uncontrollable elements, and in doing so continue to cultivate that victim mindset. But champions devote their time and energy where they know they can make a difference. They are empowered to positively influence the outcome they’re after.
3) I guarantee all of it - the good, the bad, and the ugly - has something valuable to teach you. When things don’t go the way we want, when unexpected challenges arise, or when things happen outside our control, our natural response is to push them away. We try to make ourselves feel better by forgetting about what happened and moving on. It’s really hard to sit our struggle, examine what happened, and use it to get better, but I guarantee you that opportunity exists if you're willing to find it.
Losers don’t have the toughness it takes to do that examination work. The risk of being defined by what happened is too high. It’s yet another example of that victim mentality - living at the will of the outcome. Losers embrace what feels good, and ignore what doesn’t.
Champions, as always, are different. They recognize that their struggles don’t define them, but instead that their struggles can actually refine them into the kind of person their success requires them to be. They see everything as an opportunity to learn and grow. They are relentlessly committed to using whatever happens today to help them get better for tomorrow.
The truth is, you can do all those things champions do - overcome the adversity, control the controllables, and learn from the experience - and still come up short. Success requires all you’ve got and guarantees nothing in return. Even so, I’d argue that pursuing your big dreams and lofty goals is still worth it. You might get the outcome you’re after - I hope you do - but even if you come up short, you’ll still be proud of who the pursuit helps you become. You’ll be glad you took the risk. That, I can guarantee.