Loser! If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that taunt, then you know too well the pain it can elicit. To be a loser is not just about taking a loss. We all lose from time to time. That’s just a reality of life. However, being a Loser is a mindset. It’s a belief that things are probably not going to turn out well for us. Losers seem to be able to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
The loser archetype has been a common trope in our society characters like Barney Fife, Al Bundy and George Costanza represented a common archetype, The Sad Sack. Unfortunately, too often, many of you see the characteristics that define these losers within yourselves.
This presents itself in your negative self talk. “This will never work out”, “Who do I think I am”, “I’m a failure”, or phrases like that keep getting repeated in your head. This is catastrophic to your success.
I called this article The Losers Conundrum because, despite all of the self help gurus proclaiming how easy it is to become a top shelf success, the reality is much more challenging. This is largely due to what Robert Caldini calls The Principle Of Consistency.
The Principle Of Consistency means that our brains have a lot of trouble being inconsistent. This is the basic premise behind lie detectors. While the jury is still out on how effective they are at actually detecting lies, there is no doubt that our bodies experience unpleasant physical changes when we are acting or speaking in ways that are inconsistent with what we believe to be true.
If you believe that you are a Loser, then every cell of your being will try to prove you right. As Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you think you can or cannot do it, you’re right”.
This is the real secret behind “The Secret” before you can have the things you want in life, you must first become the person who deserves to have those things. Sales trainer Myron Golden calls it the “Be, Do, Have” effect. In order to have the things you want, you must do the things you have to do to get those things, but only the people who can do those things consistently will actually do them.
If you are a Loser, you will ultimately do the things that losers do, no matter what books you read, or videos you watch. Which is why the first step you must take is to correct your self talk. There are several frameworks to help with this including NLP, CBT, and Daily Affirmations. These methods are outside the scope of this article, but feel free to reach out to me if I can be helpful.
