The Comeback: Fueling the Fight!

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time"

Thomas Edison

Over the last few weeks we have been discussing comebacks! Not the witty one-liners we often have to execute to put someone back in their place. But, the fightback! Beating the odds. Fighting our way out of the corner. A resurgence! A rebound. A rally. Picking ourselves back up off the floor, a comeback!

Comeback: a return to a former position or condition of success!

The reality is no one consistently lives on the mountain top of success! That is an illusion that most self-help gurus would want you to believe, after all that's the dream that sells the books! The truth is that in business most of us are fluctuating between wins and losses, daily, monthly and yearly. That tends to be the nature of the beast! Our success is often determined by what we learn from our wins and how we comeback from our losses.

How we comeback from our setbacks is crucial. Some individuals make the mistake of believing that the best way to get back on track is to just work harder, work faster, and increase their intensity. Unfortunately though, going faster in the wrong direction will not get you where you need to go. In most cases you end up feeling burned out.

So how do we design our comeback, ensuring we are focusing on the right strategies for the right reasons?

Last week we started discussing three key components of a successful comeback in the article 'Are You Ready For a Comeback?'. We considered the following three topics - 'You Gotta Believe', 'Find Your Team' and 'Ask Questions'. If you haven't had a chance to check out this article yet please invest five minutes now.

How we can fightback from a bad result, how we can get our targets and goals back on track? This week we are going to look at three more key components required to help drive a successful comeback.

Find Your Focus!

Often when our results are not there it is because we have been distracted by tasks and activities that are not going to have an impact on what we are trying to achieve. We get caught up in being busy, we feel like we are getting work done, yet if we are not getting the right work done for the right reasons we won't be moving the needle or making any progress towards our goals.

Bill Walsh the San Francisco 49er's NFL head coach during the 1980's famous for turning the 49er's from perennial underachievers to the most successful team of the decade. It was a great comeback! When Bill Walsh had left the 49er's after ten years, they had won three Superbowl Championships and become one of the most popular teams in the NFL! So how did he do it?

The key to Bill Walsh's success was the implementation of what he called the 'standards of performance'. Bill Walsh had clearly defined what needed to get done, by who, and by what standard if the 49er's were going to be successful. He had determined that the results were going to be achieved by not solely focusing on the results, but the performance that would influence the results.

"Concentrate on what will produce the results rather than the results, the process rather than the prize".

Bill Walsh

Performance drives results. Performance is the act of delivering on the actions and behaviour consistently that will deliver the desired results. The Pareto Principle, and its hypothesis is probably no more relevant than how we invest our focus, energy and attention on our goals. The Pareto Principle states that 80% of our results will come from 20% of our time and performance. Yet often we make the mistake of getting caught up in 'small impact' activities, the 80% that will only impact 20% of our results. We get it the wrong way around. Take the time to do a quick performance audit. Are you focusing on the right activities for the right reasons? Are you spending your time on the right performance?

“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.”

Bruce Lee

Start Today!

Progress has two great enemies, distraction and procrastination! I know, because recently I have been trying to get back into running. In my younger days I use to run quite a lot, I loved it! Yet as time has gone on other priorities have taken over. Over the last couple of months I have set two to three launch dates and those days have come and gone and I have always found several reasons why today was not a good day to start!

We can procrastinate for various reasons and it can often be determined by our personality traits. It can be determined by the kind of person you are. If you are a perfectionist, it is likely you are a procrastinator, putting things off for fear of an imperfect result or potentially failure. We can also procrastinate because we see the task or goal as overwhelmingly large and this can cause us to delay starting.

Everyone procrastinates. Everyday you delay starting is another day you delay achieving what you need to achieve! The goal is to identify why you are procrastinating and develop a strategy that will help you get started. You may need to identify key performance indicators so you can measure your progress, not just the final target. Breaking the goal down into sizable chunks can help a goal seem more achievable, after all we 'can't eat an elephant in one bite'.

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” 

Charles Dickens

Don't Give Up!

I love the Rocky movies, I love the narrative of the main character Rocky Balboa, a boxer who consistently faces setbacks and never lets it beat him. He is a fighter both in profession and personality. He understands that comebacks are tough and are not all smooth sailing.

In the sixth installment of the Rocky franchise there is this great scene where Rocky is talking to his now adult son about how life can be tough, yet we still need to not let it beat us, we need to pick ourselves up and keep moving forward. This was perfectly exemplified in Rocky Balboa quote -

“Life's not about how hard of a hit you can give... it's about how many you can take, and still keep moving forward.” 

Rocky had Grit!

Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance. Through years of research, Psychologist Angela Duckworth found grit to be a stronger predictor of high-achievement than intelligence, talent and other personality traits. Duckworth realised IQ wasn’t the only factor separating successful people from those who struggled, and that grit holding steadfast to a goal through time, had a major influence on an individual's success. Grit is about perseverance and determination. Grit is sticking to the purpose and the plan, knowing what you are doing is important and believing in it. Grit is about hope, knowing that you will work through any setbacks and that you can achieve what you need to achieve. Grit is about moving forward.

“You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.” 

Tom Hiddleston

Thanks for reading this series of articles. If you are fighting through a setback and need your own comeback story I hope you have found this series helpful and encouraging.

This list of key components isn't exclusive, so I would love to hear what has worked for you previously and what has fueled your own comeback story?

In the meantime while I wait for your comeback strategies and tactics I am going to go for a run.

Regards, Peter

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