Becoming a champion takes practice, experience and sheer resilience

Get up! Setbacks prepare you for comebacks PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • First, her clothes stall had burned to the ground. This was devastating since the stall was the only source of livelihood for her family. It had taken her three years to get back to her feet.

  • Just as her business started stabilising, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. For several months, she went through expensive treatment. Her bills rose daily. Soon, she had to sell most of her wares and eventually her stall to cater for her bills.

  • She did not give up. With time, her cancer went into remission and she was able to start all over again.

I know that I’m speaking for many readers when I say that I don’t know how to take care of a race horse. You see, I have never owned one, and only see them occasionally on television and on the road with happy-looking riders.

I know a thing or two about domestic animals like cows and donkeys, but that’s a different story. Race horses are thoroughbreds. They are generations of carefully selected and bred horses.

Thoroughbreds are born to race and are trained to win. The few minutes witnessed on the racetrack are the culmination of a lot of background work by a strong team, including the farm manager, the trainer, groom and jockey.

As I said earlier, I have little knowledge of these things. I know, however, that a lot of work is done before the actual race. Winning does not begin on the race-track. It starts long before the race dates are set. Whenever we hear that a horse has done well, it is the result of much effort.

Everyone is born with a lot of talent. Like the race-horses, we have the potential to win, but we require training and preparation in order to do so.

Becoming a champion is about practice, experience, and, most importantly, getting up over and over again after each failure.

You must have come across people who are struggling to succeed in life. They might be unsuccessful at the moment but they still hold on. That is an element of success.

This too shall pass

This was what Hilda was going through. It was the third time she had failed to sell insurance policies to her potential clients.  Nobody had prepared her for the rudeness and indifference that greeted her each time she went into an office. She was just about ready to give up. Then a magazine on the street caught her attention. It carried an article with the title “This too shall pass”. She bought it.

When she got home, she sat down and started reading the article. It was about Marion, a woman who had gone through several tragedies.

First, her clothes stall had burned to the ground. This was devastating since the stall was the only source of livelihood for her family. It had taken her three years to get back to her feet.

Just as her business started stabilising, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. For several months, she went through expensive treatment. Her bills rose daily. Soon, she had to sell most of her wares and eventually her stall to cater for her bills.

She did not give up. With time, her cancer went into remission and she was able to start all over again.

Marion concluded that everyone needed to realise that they had in their genetic make-up all that was required for them to succeed.

One of the lessons she had learnt was that knowing that it shall come to pass was a powerful way of being motivated. She had learnt that the darkest night always gives birth to a new dawn. Her resilience had come from the realisation that no matter how dark the night, it would not extinguish her inner light.

She knew that winning was an inside job, that it began with one’s determination to succeed.

To become a winner, you must think like a winner and act like one, whatever the circumstances. Race horses are prepared thoroughly and exercised properly so that they win. You are genetically wired to win, but must develop your potential. Winning is not easy, which is why so many people don’t stand on the winners’ podium.

And remember, setbacks prepare you for a comeback. Each time you come across a setback, learn to tell yourself, “This, too, shall pass”.