When you lose - don’t lose the lesson!

My 8^th grade son is a Wrestler.  This is his second season wrestling and he has become my mini-man hero!  It take guts, like nothing else I have ever seen in a human, to go out there in front of a crowd in a singlet and go man-to-man all by himself.  If you have a teenage son, you know that thirteen years old is NO JOKE when it comes to self-confidence and all of that emotional stuff.  These are some tough years!  He is just learning the sport, and every single day he makes improvements in his sport.  Isn’t that what life is really all about about!?!  Getting a little better every day?  

Spiritually.  Physically.  Emotionally.

I bought my son an iPad Mini for Christmas.  I (half jokingly) told him that with it I would record his wrestling matches, but he will have to win because I don’t want to record him losing.  His reply to me was one I will NEVER FORGET:

“I will learn more from watching myself lose than watching myself win.”

Whoa.

That is a VERY mature statement and holds so much truth.

Proud mom moment right there!

I think back on failures (jobs I did not get, relationships gone wrong, quotas I did not meet, etc.) and in reflecting on those I have grown a little bit wiser every time with every failure.  I have failed many times, but those are the lessons where I learned the most!

It's funny how you forget what you did right when you win, but you never forget what you did wrong when you lose.

Sometimes we are afraid to try because we are afraid to lose, but it’s in losing that we learn the best lessons!  Winning is great, and a sweet reward for our hard work, but it’s just not going to happen every time.  We can't be afraid to lose! 

Let’s wrestle!

All the single ladies - put your hands up… in 2014

I have been going through a VERY fun and exciting exercise over the past few days and REALLY want you to consider doing the same!  My MBA head gets a little carried away at times with analytical thinking, but this was a life-changing experience going into the New Year so want to share my experience with you all.  You don’t have to take it as far as me, but PLEASE think about this.

As single ladies, we meet Mr. Amazing and get grooving in the newness of the situation with reckless abandonment of what is really important to us.  I get the whole “it takes time to get to know someone” thing, but let’s face it… chemistry and values are important.  I have looked at Mr. Amazing’s list of great values but ignored the NO chemistry part, and vice versa - have felt the chemistry ignoring the values part.  We often try to make square pegs fit in round holes and it’s just not comfortable.  We don’t RUN fast enough when the red flags tell us to RUN and it makes for yuck-yuck down the road.  Amen!?!

In truth, do we even know what we are looking for in the first place?

So here’s my exciting exercise (and it does NOT involve running or boob sweat this time, so please relax):

I have categorized a few key areas on what I have to offer and am looking for in a lovie dovie.  Here are my key areas:  personality, youthful approach to life, physical, romance, responsibility and priorities, lifestyle, intelligence, values and ideals, spirituality, and confidence.  I intend on this document being fluid and ever-changing.  Think of it as a roadmap for 2014.  You can never get to where you want to go by driving in circles! 

Here’s a verse from the Good Book that applies very well:

“As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.” ~ Proverbs 26:11 NLT

Pretty gross, huh!?!    

My point is this, we need to understand ourselves first and what is important to us before we can go looking for those things in someone else.  I hear girls say, “He was beneath me” or “I lowered my standards.”  You have to have a baseline to compare standards to in the first place.  He’s beneath WHAT?

I cannot be too rigid with this impossible list of the PERFECT man, but there are certain things that I cannot and will not compromise on.  I’m shallow, so he has to be HOT. I’m not gonna lie.  Sue me.

Anywho… clearly know what YOU have going for YOU first.  You have to love and understand yourself FIRST.  Be honest with yourself and correct those area in YOU that need corrected before you look for Mr. Amazing to do the damage repair. 

Make sense?

Happy New Year, ladies!  Cheers!  xo