There’s a cost if we truly want to be unaffected by negative events.

We might think we want to be able to bounce back from tough losses. To take a punch, and keep going.

And if that’s true, then we’d be well served to remove ourselves from the results.

When we focus our evaluation on our own effort and the process we followed rather than some external scorecard, we remove the impact that scorecard has on us.

It’s pretty simple. As long as we focus our evaluation internally, then we position ourselves to be resilient to external defeats.

But before making this plunge, we have to realize it’s a two-sided coin.

When we devalue the negative external feedback we get, we inherently devalue the positive as well.

That doesn’t mean we can’t be happy when we win, or that we can’t celebrate though.

If anything, I’ve found that it makes the winning even sweeter.

Rather than holding our breathes and waiting for the verdict as powerless spectators, we can be at peace knowing that our internal victory already has taken place.

The external validation then, should it come, is just icing on the cake.

-Brandon