The Only Defeat is Self-Defeat

The following is adapted from Thank You, Cancer.

It would have been so easy for me to allow myself to be defeated. I was diagnosed with stage IV glioblastoma, an aggressive and usually deadly form of cancer. Doctors told me that it would certainly come back and that, ultimately, there was nothing they could do.

How long did they expect me to live? Ten years, maximum. Probably much less. In those circumstances, I could have crumbled. I could have allowed myself to believe them. I could have gone home and prepared to die.

I chose not to do that. I was only twenty years old, but I was learning some intense life lessons. I began to understand that cancer couldn’t defeat me. Only I could do that. Alternatively, I could stand up and put everything I had into supporting my health, growing my business, and becoming one of the people who outlives their diagnosis and remains cancer-free for life.

Where in your life do you feel defeated? Is it because external circumstances are getting the better of you, or are you defeating yourself?

Creating Miracles

After my cancer diagnosis, I wanted and needed a miracle. The thing is, miracles come from action. If you really need a miracle, you have to work at it.

People with a passive mentality want things to just happen for them. They want to wait until everything is just right before they take action. They allow their struggles to pile up and use those struggles as an excuse to stay stuck. Then they wonder why they fail, why they aren’t happy, why they don’t have money or aren’t in shape.

Since I first discovered I had cancer, passivity was no longer an option. I was surrounded by people who seemed afraid to be hopeful, so they gave me a worst-case scenario. Not only did I need to become active in pursuing my goals, I also needed to actively change my thoughts.

To Succeed, Change Your Thoughts

My whole life, I’ve always been determined to get better and better at everything I do. In middle school, I wanted to be a starter on my basketball team. In high school, I wanted to be the MVP. Nothing was going to stop me from reaching my goals, though for a while it felt like that came at a price.

Following my cancer diagnosis, as I built a business based on ketogenic nutrition, I almost defeated myself. I wanted the validation of knowing that I was bringing value to the world, and I sought that in social media. I wanted people to admire what I was doing and to give me approval.

Unfortunately, I was getting a lot of hate from people who doubted the value of keto and from those who just wanted to attack me personally. Either the doubters were louder than the people seeing benefit, or there really were more of them. Either way, I wondered whether I was bringing something good to the world or just creating more chaos. My confidence dropped lower and lower, and I started to wonder whether I had any value to offer at all.

I Had to Understand Who I Was

It wasn’t actually their words hurting me, though. I was defeating myself. In my diet and my business, I was making massive leaps and seeing growth—but I wasn’t growing as a person.

I had kept my eyes on the vision, which helped me move forward in my business and health goals… but I hadn’t really thought about myself. Until I grew my own self-worth and understood who I was, I would always be pulled down by external voices telling me who they thought I was.

A cancer patient, a hack, a loner, a dropout. The labels become a leash that drags us down and holds us back. The only way to counter them is to understand who we really are. If you’re struggling with a sense of defeat, understand that you’re defeating yourself. You’re viewing yourself through the eyes of others and deciding that you’re not good enough.

What possibilities would open up for you if you looked first to yourself? How can you find self-validation, instead of looking for it through external sources? When you know the answers to these questions, you’ll know how to stop defeating yourself.

For more advice on how to stop defeating yourself, you can find Thank You, Cancer on Amazon.

Logan Sneed is a brain cancer survivor and entrepreneur whose online business generated a six-figure income before his 21st birthday. A stage-4 cancer diagnosis didn’t derail Logan’s desire to reinvent himself every day and pursue the dreams he wasn’t ready to give up. Today, Logan is an inspirational public speaker, social media influencer, ketogenic diet expert, and a best-self coach with a passion for personal transformation. To learn more or connect with Logan, visit LoganSneed.com.