![It was a little bit more clear cut back then [You were dead or you weren’t]
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My in-laws have the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling in a frame in their kitchen.
It’s always been one of my favourites too.
As with any poem, song or speech, there’s always some bits which ring more or less true than others.
One that’s become more pertinent to me in recent years is this;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
Because I’ve come to see how, more and more, the definitions of such things are self created and often vague at best.
Triumph and disaster.
Victory and defeat.
Winning or losing.
Good or bad.
Hundreds of years ago victory and defeat were pretty clear cut.
In a battle you either survived and won.
Or died and didn’t.
Quite straight forward.
Nowadays most of us won’t be involved in many actual battles to the death on a day to day basis.
Nowadays our battles are normally with the day or week.
And we decide if they’ve gone well or not.
If they were good or bad.
And we usually have, at best, only a vague notion of what a good day / week looks like.
It’s probably everything going perfectly.
All our work getting done.
Probably more quickly than is actually even possible.
Everyone involved behaving exactly as we’d like them to.
Us feeling energetic, enthusiastic and pain free throughout.
Despite these things rarely, if ever, happening.
So if our definition of victory / triumph / a good day or week is pretty much impossible………
We’re setting ourselves up to feel that it was bad.
Realising this is powerful.
It’s not a lowering of standards as some might write it off as.
It can be a raising of them if anything.
Allowing ourselves to recognise our successes.
To build confidence and momentum.
And use that to springboard to further success.
To review what went less well.
To learn from it.
To make it go differently next time, perhaps.
Or to be more accepting of what happens under the circumstances.
If our definition of “Triumph” is vague at best, practically impossible at worst……….
Then we’re left with “Disaster”.
Remembering that these “imposters” are largely just labels we’ve created…………..
And that we can redefine in a way that sets us up for success anytime we want to…………..
Can be powerful!
Much love,
Jon ‘This Than That’ Hall
P.S. Let’s set some better definitions of ‘triumph’. And then work together to make them more likely to happen. Step one of that is either more info via www.myrise.co.uk/apply or just getting cracking on changing your life at www.myrise.co.uk/join.
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
