A Defeat is Not a Failure

Have you ever suffered a significant defeat in your life? Did you feel you had no hope for what may come next? If so (and this is true for most people), then you have made the common mistake of confusing a defeat with a failure. While this might seem like a little semantic game-playing, it is instead the core idea behind a very profound and powerful truth.

Let's consider the concept of a defeat in military or athletic terms. A defeat generally refers to the loss of one battle or one competition. Alternatively, a victory generally refers to the winning of one battle or one competition.



Now let's consider the concept of a failure in our common cultural terms. A failure is the end of a business, an opportunity or a possibility of what might have been. We think of a failure as a loser, a worthless person, a person who didn't try very hard or a person who doesn't matter. Alternatively, a success is the achievement of goals, and also describes that very worthy person who achieved their goals.

So, when we say...

"A defeat is not a failure," or

"A victory is not a success,"

we are making an important distinction between how we have performed on tactical vs. strategic goals. In this context, a strategy represents our overall plan for what we want to accomplish, while our tactics are the specific steps we intend to use to accomplish our strategy.

If you're still with me, and you haven't yet seen why this distinction is important, let's state it more clearly right now:

The non-achievement of a specific and small tactic (a defeat) is not the same thing as betraying our important life goals and values (a failure)!

Consequently, a defeat that occurs at a single point in our journey should not have an emotional impact equivalent to being branded a "loser." And yet, that is how most of us perceive setbacks at any level of importance. We are angry with ourselves for failing, causing us to lose our forward momentum on the bigger picture.

Just think, if you spent only a few minutes grieving about a setback before recognizing its true limited value as one tactic in a long string of successes, then moved on to try again, how much more powerful would your approach and your successes be!