3 Tips to Getting and Staying Off of Losing Streaks

I want to talk about how to deal with one of the most frustrating and demotivating things that happen to people- the slump.

We all face them at one point or another, and how you handle yourself through a slump or “losing streak” determines how quickly you get out of it. As Dr. Suess says, “Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”

Here are a 3 tips that I’ve found helpful:

1. Don’t beat yourself up

When it dawns on you that you are in a pattern you don’t like (out of shape, not selling as well as you were, losing ground financially- whatever), you must first stop any feelings of guilt or shame that surround the situation. Simply understanding that a little losing streak doesn’t make you a bad person can really feel like lifting a weight off your shoulders. This kind of self-forgiving will allow you to accept your situation, which MUST happen before positive change can occur. You can’t get out of a trap you won’t admit you’re in.

Draw some confidence from the knowledge that literally every single top performer in any field (think Tiger Woods, Brett Favre, Donald Trump) anyone at the pinnacle of achievement , has had numerous losing streaks and was able to grow stronger as a result. So first of all, cut yourself some slack. Just a little.

2. Forget about perfection and be excellent

One of the major causes of a losing streak is that we have just enough success to be dangerous to ourselves, and then we think that we have to do everything perfectly, automatically, immediately. This results in mass amounts of unnecessary pressure that make us uptight and tense. Almost every dip or downslide comes from a tensing up over nothing. So forget about being perfect. It’s unattainable and totally irrelevant!

In his tremendous audio program The Maverick Mindset, Dr. John Eliot remarks that top achievers have zero interest in being perfect, which frees them up to be the best they can be. That’s where excellence comes from.

3. Get back to the basics

Finally, in order to get off a losing streak, stop making things more complicated than they are. When you find yourself wondering where your mojo went, just stop for a moment and look at what you’re doing- your behavior .

Now think back to the time when you were just on fire and compare your behaviors. If I had to bet, I would guess that when things were/are going well, you were doing very basic things but doing them brilliantly, right? The good news is that when you “re-simplify”, your results get back to where they were very quickly.

So getting off a losing streak may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it is fairly simple. Next month we’ll talk about how to start your own personal winning streak, so have a Happy Thanksgiving and stay in touch!

Be Free!

Roger SeipInstructor