If you think you are beaten...

If you think you are beaten, you are If you think you dare not, you don't, If you like to win, but you think you can't It is almost certain you won't. If you think you'll lose, you're lost For out of the world we find, Success begins with a fellow's will It's all in the state of mind. If you think you are outclassed, you are You've got to think high to rise, You've got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win a prize. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man, But sooner or later the man who wins Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!

―Walter D. Wintle

I like this poem. You’ve got to believe in yourself first. We all have self doubt, but you’ve got to start with learning to quieten down those voices first and also learning to twist and turn when you hit a set back rather than letting it stop you completely.

Life is more about how you face that challenge rather than whether you win or lose. It can either be the problem or set back that defines you, or your response to it, the difference between the two is your state of mind.

There are many other good examples on how your state of mind affects you including.....

Victor E. Frankl’s observations on human behaviour in a Nazi concentration camp is a fine study of the difference in humans when they are stripped back to the binary choice of life or death, but also how a persons mind is needed for survival even when the physical odds mean it should be impossible

Remember that story about NASA spending millions of dollars on finding out how a bee flies but proved scientifically that it cannot as it does not have the aerodynamics to fly, with its little fat furry body? Trouble is, no one ever told the bee that. It just believes it can fly so it gets up every morning and flies off.

Then there is that story that's grown around Thomas Edison when he failed at making a lightbulb 99 times before he eventually got one to work and when asked about this constant failure he replied “I never failed, I’ve just shown you 99 ways how not to make a lightbulb”.

Steve Jobs is saying that in this video that I’ve forced you to watch many times. “You are already naked, there is no reason not to follow your heart”.

But my favourite is that little robot sent to Mars, ‘Opportunity Lander’, better known as Oppy. Sent for a 90 day mission to send back data, but no one told it that, so it went on for 14 years collecting data and sending it back to NASA before sending back that final message:

"My battery is low, and its getting dark"

RIP Oppy

25/1/2004 - 10/6/2018

He just thought he could do it, so he did, never giving up.