Cut Your Losses and Move On

I was speaking to parents one time about raising kids with successful character. In the Q and A a woman raised her hand and asked, “If you could tell parents what the one thing is that is most important to teach their kids about success, what would it be?”

“I would teach them how to lose,” I said.

The woman tilted her head, looked at me strangely, and said, “Why in the world would you want to teach them how to lose?” After all, we were talking about success.

“Because they will,” I said.

She just looked at me and slowly nodded.

Her slow realization seemed to mirror the equally slow learning curve that most of us have about this character trait. After all, no one wants to go through losses to learn how to do it well. Why practice pain so you know how to go through pain? That makes no sense. So, since we want success instead of failure, we do not often focus on losing well, other than to teach people how to be graceful after a sporting event or an election and to congratulate the other side. But that has little effect on future success.

So why learn how to lose well? The reason is twofold. First, as I told her, we will. We all lose. Things will not turn out well and will sometimes be unable to be fixed, even through more perseverance, creativity, and resourcefulness. Sometimes, it is just not going to happen, and in fact, more perseverance can even lead us further down the wrong path, wasting resources, time, and energy. We need to wave the white flag. So, losing is a reality that everyone encounters, and therefore we need to learn how to negotiate it. 

But second, and most important, the difference between winners and losers is not that winners never lose. The difference is that winners lose well, and losers lose poorly. As a result, winners lose less in the future and do not lose the same way that they lost last time, because they have learned from the loss and do not repeat the pattern. But losers do not learn from what they did and tend to carry that loss or pattern forward into the next venture, or relationship, and repeat the same way of losing. Therefore, they do not become people who lose, as does everyone, but they become people who never win because they do the same things over and over that led to their last loss. 

The first aspect of losing well has to do with the ability to let go and just face the reality that you have lost. As Ecclesiastes 3:6 says, “there is a time to search and a time to give up.” The Vegas version is “Don’t throw good money after bad.” Either way you want to say it, the truth is that sometimes it is over, and more effort, attention, or work is wasteful. But, some people, because of character issues, just can’t let it go. They can’t face the loss and reorganize in a new direction. It is the dead of winter and they are still looking for fruit on the tree. Better to use your energy to get ready for springtime so you can sow seeds that have a chance of growing. 

Integrated characters deal with loss well. First of all, they do not deny it, no matter how much they might love the idea or the endeavor. They can face up to the reality that it is gone. As in losing a loved one, they can grieve. If you have ever seen healthy people go through a loss, you have noticed that they face the pain, then reemerge after the grief and have their hearts available to life again. There is a springtime after the winter of grief. They are not lost in what has been lost and stay there. 

On the other hand, you have seen people who cannot lose someone and reemerge. Psychologists call this complicated bereavement. It is the inability to move through loss in the normal stages through resolution. People get stuck in denial, or anger and protest, or sadness, or despair, and cannot move on. This has to do with their makeup, not the nature of the loss itself. Losing is a part of life, and healthy people do it painfully, but successfully. They reinvent and go on. 

It is a similar process in both relationships and reaching goals. People’s ability to make something work has everything to do with their ability to let go of something that does not work, grieve it, and move on. If something is lost and cannot be fixed, then it is time to wave the white flag and surrender, let it go, and make it something in the past. There is a reason why some people are able to lose and come back, and others stay stuck. They can’t surrender and face the feelings and the meaning of some loss, so they hang on to something that is dead. The big idea that successful people always have the strength and courage to live out is: 

Cut your losses and move on.