Those of you who know me will know that I am a big Conor McGregor fan. I know he is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I really do feel that, his outlook, the philosophies he lives by, and the way he conducts himself, and approaches life, make him a really good role model, certainly for me, and for a lot of other people too, I would imagine. One of his, and John Kavanagh’s (his coach), mantras is “We never lose, either we win, or we learn”. It’s something that I have incorporated into my therapy and found extremely helpful. In therapy, as in life, there are always ups and downs. We often set out to do something, and find that either, we “fail” to do it completely, or we do it, but we fall short, “failing” to do it in the manner that we would deem acceptable or to the standard that we expect from ourselves. Whether this is in relation to a long-term aim, or just an every day task, I’ve always had a tendency to really focus on the negative, and berate and chastise myself. I felt I needed to react in this way in order to motivate myself, and to ensure that I would eventually achieve whatever task or goal I was attempting to achieve. Rather than motivating me however, this would send me into a negative spiral, eroding my self-esteem, and actually demotivating, and discouraging me, from pursuing and achieving what I had set out to achieve. If I “failed” to achieve something, I would often take that to mean that, that was it! I had failed, and that meant I could never achieve that particular goal. By adopting Conor McGregor and John Kavanagh’s attitude towards these “failures”, I’m learning to deal with them in a different, much healthier, and more productive manner. Rather than viewing these instances as negative events, a failure to achieve a goal or a “win”, they are positive learning opportunities. I can take a step back and reflect. In doing so, I can come to understand, why, on this occasion, I did not succeed. Then, in a mindful way, I can gently pull myself back to the present moment, refocussing, and utilising the valuable knowledge and understanding I have gained, to adapt, and make whatever adjustments need to be made, to improve my chances of success on my next attempt. In doing so, I never “lose” of “fail”, because every one of these experiences/instances is, as I have said, a positive and valuable learning experience. It may not be the “win” that I had in mind, but it is its own type of “win”, and a “win”, that ultimately, can be used to help me to move closer to the original “win” I had in mind.