Defeat

“Defeat is a state of mind. No one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality. To me, defeat in anything is merely temporary, and its punishment is but an urge for me to greater effort to achieve my goal. Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth.”
Bruce Lee

 This quote brought to mind the video I saw a year or so ago.  I found it again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6hz_s2XIAU

Fun thing about looking something up, I found another similar video that is a bit longer but includes more up to date famous people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLYECIjmnQs

One of my greatest stresses was making a mistake of any kind.  Failure, was simply not an option.  It was Do or Die.  This mind set caused problems.  I would totally freak over criticism.  I would beat myself up over the slightest error or mistake.  I learned that making mistakes was not the horrible thing that I needed to be afraid of.  I know where the brainwashing came from.  As a child, I would make a childish mistake and I would be lectured on how I could change so that I NEVER made that mistake again.  The pressure to perform was astronomical.  However, I made some huge whopping poor choices and nothing would happen.  No correction.  No plan of action.  No assistance in how to improve my choices.  Extreme punishments for the most minor errors and nothing when police were involved.  I stressed over everything.  Never knowing when the "axe" would fall.  I needed to desensitize myself to failure.  I started with Sudokus.  A simple numbers puzzle with answers in the back of the book.  I was allowed to fail.  I was rewarded with putting a huge X across the ones that I made a mistake on.  I allowed myself to look in the back of the book for clues if I wanted.  Over time, a mistake became just a mistake.  Something to learn from and move on.  I am working at teaching myself how to cook something besides big family quick and easy meals.  I am experimenting with creating a sewing things without a pattern.  I am making mistakes and not beating myself up over them.  I am learning that failure is an experiment that didn't work out as planned and I need to adjust my plan.  I am learning that failure is a step towards success.