Some failures are easier to accept than others. There are three main emotional reactions to failure depending on how close you were to succeeding. Oddly, the best kind of failure in terms of ease of endurance is in the middle - neither a whisker from succeeding nor not even close, but between them - you failed because there were things you could not have known.

To be tantalizingly close to success then see it slip from your grasp is extremely frustrating, because you are taunted by the thought that if you had done one thing slightly differently, you would have succeeded. To be totally and decisively defeated is equally painful, humiliating for you and embarrassing to everyone else, and again, it's YOUR fault - you should have known you were "out of your league" or you clearly neglected to do the right mental or physical preparation.

These emotional reactions are understandable and generally beyond our control - we cannot help how we feel when struck a blow. What's really important is what happens next. When we are initially struck by any sort of emotion, we have an immediate reaction that overrides our objectivity, and there is nothing but pure feeling in our experience. But fairly quickly, awareness returns - we still feel it, but we're AWARE that we feel it.

What we do next will determine the impact of the defeat in our lives. For some, it will be the end - they will never recover. Others will remember it as the start of their success. What makes the difference?

It all depends on where the attention goes next. The memory of defeat will remain in our awreness, which cannot be shifted - we have no control over our awareness, but we have full control over our attention. Those for whom the defeat spells doom are those who will not take their attention off the memory - they keep constantly reliving it, looking for an answer which isn't there, and the bitter re-runs just remind them that they're failures.

The successful have their attention on a different question. Instead of perpetually asking where did it all go wrong they are asking what is my next move? Consequently, their attention is forwards and upwards, not on the fall. No fall, no matter how catastrophic, amounts to the end if you survive it. It may reult in lowering sights or different goals, but there's no reason and no excuse to act as one condemned to death if you are not actually dead yet. Unless you're dead, or believe you're dead, there is alwys a "next move", a positive difference to be made, a contribution to offer.

Defeat is an essential ingredient in the recipe for success, because defeats are how you learn to be successful. To stay successful, remember the message of defeat and keep applying it forwards..