A LOSING MENTALITY

“Winners are not afraid of losing, but losers are.” - Robert Kiyosaki

Where does your mind go when you find yourself doing something difficult?

Do you expect to win?

Or do you anticipate losing?

When faced with difficult tasks or challenges, your brain will have a default mode that it instinctively falls into. This is known as the fight or flight response. Your brain either senses danger and saddles the fuck up for war or senses danger and wants to run away as fast as possible.

How do I know this? Because my brain triggers the flight response almost every time I sense difficulty.

Anytime I am faced with adversity or a difficult task, the voice in my head reminds me that I am going to lose. Almost as if it’s saying: “Hey Cory, I know it took a lot of courage for you to challenge yourself like this, but I just wanted to remind you that you fucking suck at everything and you’ll never be good at anything.”

Imagine hearing that almost every time that you do something….

Or maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Ever since I was a kid I had these negative thoughts about everything. An anxiety that ran through every cell in my body doing everything it could to force me to shut down. I like to call this feeling the losing mentality. No matter what you choose to do in life, your mind tells you that you will lose. Literally NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, YOU WILL LOSE!

Due to this mentality, I have to battle extra hard to suppress these shitty thoughts. And when I find success by pushing through difficulties, I find confidence in who I am. It is the only thing that can shut up that voice in my head, even if it’s only for a moment.

A great example of this happened to me the other day at the gym. I was about to attempt a PR (personal record) for back squat. The most I had ever squatted for one rep was 345 lbs and it was a few years ago. So after squatting 335 lbs pretty easily, I threw 20 more pounds on the bar. I was pretty pumped after hitting 335 with ease, so 355 lbs should have been a fucking cake walk….. until it wasn’t. After I placed 20 extra pounds on the bar, the losing mentality showed up right on cue. “Cory, you really think you can squat 355 lbs?? No fucking chance. You’re too fucking tall and your legs are already tired”.

So, as I unracked the weight and descended into the 90 degree position, I felt physically capable of pushing that weight back up to the top. The problem was that I wasn’t mentally capable. The losing mentality had won again.

After this failed attempt, I explained to my wife what went through my head. Now her instinct, because she loves me, is to make concessions for me. But she didn’t. She recognized that in that moment, I was more than capable of accomplishing that goal but I didn’t believe that I was. What my mind wanted her to do was to validate my excuses. To give me reasons to accept losing and continue making it my norm.

But that’s what losers fucking do.

They make excuses and share them with others so that they can garner sympathy. But what if I chose to curb those excuses? What if I said “fuck you” to the negative voices in my head? What if I actually allowed self belief to be my guiding light, and to help me push past any obstacle with full force?

Then what?

Well then I‘d become a winner. A winner who believes he can overcome anything. A man who is focused and driven by results, as opposed to being scared to lose.

A man who is one step closer to becoming a hero.

So what are you going to do??

Are you going to tell that voice to shut the fuck up?

Or are you going to keep allowing it to keep you from winning.

The choice is yours.