Setting A New Bigger Goal

Max Verstappen has the mindset of a winner, as proven in his second Driver's Championship. 

Obviously, after achieving success, it's perfectly natural to want to take some time off before ramping back up for another bout. 

Staying motivated beyond our initial success means always raising the bar.

As soon as we’ve achieved one goal, we should celebrate, rest, and then set a new, bigger goal. 

We should try to raise the bar even after success and never stop pushing ourselves. 

Just like Max. 

Dealing with failure even after following our personal plan can be very frustrating and many times, we tend to give up in anger and despair. 

But it's these moments that it's critical to implement our plan and put in the work to get over the bump and pull through. 

When we overcome hardship, we develop resiliency, determination and courage. 

We should continually remind ourselves that failure is rarely the end of something, and usually is the beginning of a new phase. 

Failure is inevitable. 

If we don’t learn to tolerate failure, we will become vulnerable to anxiety and stress, which may even lead us to give up on our goals. 

Acquiring the necessary skills and experience in coping with failure, is a crucial part of success: Relearning those critical thinking skills like problem-solving, self-regulation, and open mindedness. 

All F1 drivers live by these values. 

There are no overnight success stories, every driver has learnt the virtues of failure. 

Getting a second chance is about growing beyond our failures. 

The only difference between an opportunity and an obstacle is our attitude. 

When possible, we should try fixing what we can without making things worse. 

By accepting accountability for the current situation, we can try to do the best with the resources we have and change what went wrong. 

And once we've tried to repair the damage, we have to take the measures necessary to ensure that similar mistakes won't happen again. 

We tend to think that once we've "made it" our mental battles will melt away. 

But generally the opposite happens. 

The pressure to perform at the highest levels can bring with it more scrutiny and judgement. 

F1 drivers have to deal with this in the most extreme form, as fans and critics take apart their every move, and mistakes can suddenly spiral out of hand. 

The key to dealing with this is to stop the mental spiral before it causes emotional havoc on our self confidence and performance. 

Crashing and failure are an integral part of Formula One and can't be avoided if one wants to achieve the best results possible. 

In life, most of us do all that we can to avoid failure, but the road to success is paved with risk taking, and most of the time we are going to crash if we want to be successful. 

But the quicker we embrace crashing as not just some distant possibility, but a speedbump on our journey, the faster we'll reach our goals, or realize at some point that we need to pivot. 

Being mentally agile allows us to let go of mental models that are not working in a changing environment. 

We can learn to identify new priorities and see which skills are needed to perform well in a different situation. 

We can learn to adopt better strategies and make new connections between different factors. 

Being mentally agile will enable us to manage change and uncertainty. 

New opportunities even when they don't present themselves as such, will give us the chance to grow and thrive. 

Envisioning success is a great part of being successful. 

When we see ourselves being successful at what we undertake, our subconscious mind constructs paths for us to reach those goals. 

What led to our past successes? 

By looking for ways to capitalize on our strengths, we will be able to act in a proactive manner in the future. 

Good luck Checo.  

The reality is that change after failure is a difficult growth process that involves various stages and obviously mistakes will be made along the way. 

When we set unreasonable expectations, demanding of ourselves perfection, we leave little room to deal with set backs. 

Adopting a more self-compassionate stance to grow through failure provides us with the opportunity to heal and thrive with self acceptance and pride. 

Often when we talk about the fear of failure we're really talking about the fear of shame. 

What often keeps us from taking the necessary steps towards our goal, isn’t a lack of desire, it’s an unwillingness to discover if we have what it takes to succeed. 

If we give in to these types of anxiety, low self-esteem, or even a perfectionist persona - we often find ourselves in a state of inertia. 

The problem with this lack of action is that it prevents us from ever realizing our full potential. 

There are two important qualities that we can try and cultivate in our own lives: 

• Taking advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself: 

• Not shying away from a challenge but rather seeing it as an occasion to prove ourselves. 

Demonstrating mental agility will enable us to execute quick pivots by training our minds to embrace discomfort. 

By doing these we will realize that taking action in uncertain conditions builds our inner strength and enables us to reach our goals more easily. 

So how can we set expectations and make helpful sustainable changes to rebuild our mental wellbeing? 

The main factor is allowing ourselves self-compassion. 

Self-compassion has become one of the most effective strategies for helping those of us who are highly self-critical overachievers make changes from a place of compassion instead of a place of shame. 

Self-compassion starts with talking to ourselves in a kinder and more mindful way to motivate ourselves to make the necessary changes. . 

A growth mindset is not simply about remaining positive, it means believing in our capacity to develop our abilities through learning, practice and persistence. 

In a growth mindset, effort is important, but our attitude toward learning new things and our perspective on failure are just as crucial to the process. 

Failure is an important part of learning. 

Far from being something to be ashamed of, failure is proof that we’re committed to the process of trying and improving. 

Sergio Perez knows that not everything is up to him in his attempt to finish second in the Driver's Championship, but he has a firm belief in his internal locus of control, meaning his own effort and hard work. 

F1 drivers know that nothing is going to be handed to them without a lot of hard work. 

They may have their eyes locked on an ambitious goal, but they’re also firmly rooted in what they need to be doing in the present in order to win the race. 

Good luck Checo! 

So can we develop KI like any other skill or is it an innate quality? 

The short answer is YES. 

KI is in fact a skill, it can be learned and consistently practiced. 

The development and enforcement of this skill is one of our greatest responsibilities and assets on our path to success. Some people feel a need to make excuses or explain their failures. 

But for us on the path to developing KI, failure builds our resilience and grit, and sometimes can motivate us even more to continue. 

Luck plays a great role in our own life success. 

People who are able to exploit ‘lucky events’ end up more successful in life. 

Lucky events can also be created. 

When you are open to new ideas and surround yourself with stimulating people, you are more likely to encounter lucky events. 

Keeping an open mind, harnessing a growth mindset, stepping outside of our comfort zone and exploring new opportunities will bring more lucky events our way.  

 Lewis Hamilton had a difficult start to the 2022 F1 season, as his Mercedes team struggled with their car. 

But things have improved greatly in the last few races and the Mercedes team has begun to climb their way out of the slump. 

When asked about the process, Hamilton mentioned the importance of perseverance. 

Persistence is an important key to our success as well. 

Not giving up even when we aren’t feeling motivated is a major factor in helping us get back on track. 

 Life is about messing up. 

That’s why the people who live the greatest lives possible, also profess to the biggest failures. 

It comes with the territory. 

So if we want to live life to the fullest, we have to be willing to deal with failing. 

Sometimes even in public. 

Then we can allow ourselves to find out who we really are and what we are capable of doing, by realizing that failure is essential to achieving our goals. 

We are afraid of failure or even sometimes, the consequences of success. 

But once we've made a decision - we need to act upon it. 

We find it hard – sometimes even impossible – to get started. 

One way out of such a dilemma is to break it down into a series of micro-decisions. 

No matter how much we study how to make a difficult decision, we will never be able to guarantee the outcome. 

The only thing we can do is take action and be ready to deal with the consequences 

We've made a short video for your enjoyment. 

Let us know what you think in the comments below 

 It’s not surprising that getting fired can be one of life’s most stressful and devastating events. 

This is not an easy event to bounce back from, but with the right coping methods, we can deal with being fired and move forward. 

No matter what the reason for our firing, we will likely be full of anger, resentment, and shock, and obviously, anxiety and stress about our next career move. 

Who will be the main driver for Alpine in 2023? 

The second driver is the one challenging the main star, often not given the same importance by the team or the fans. 

Given the nature of desire, there are no experiences that are entirely free of disappointment, even when a driver understands his role as number 2. 

This makes disappointment such a complex and confusing feeling. 

How we choose to cope with disappointment is often a defining decision in our lives. 

And get up after a failed attempt and give it another shot. 

When we feel frustrated with ourselves for failing to meet unrealized (or even unrealistic) goals, it's important to take a closer look at the things we have already achieved. 

Revisiting our accomplishments can put things in the right perspective and help us avoid that spiral of despair. 

AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda is very tough on himself when he has a setback. 

He doesn't share the blame or make excuses. 

Rather he admits the failure and continues to make the effort for himself and for the team. 

We can learn a lot from Tsunoda's attitude and adopt it in our own lives: 

When we've made a mistake, it's best to honestly and openly express our regret for the error. 

And get up after a failed attempt and give it another shot. 

From 2014 onwards, Mercedes enjoyed a long period of dominance in Formula One. 

Red Bull  Team boss Christian Horner noted that they learned a valuable lesson during that period that helped them to prepare for their future success.

"The most important thing was keeping the team together, focusing on the things we could control," he said of their experiences during Mercedes' dominance. 

Formula One drivers know that not everything is up to them, but they have a firm belief in their internal locus of control, meaning that their success or failure is a result of the effort and hard work they put in. 

F1 drivers know that nothing is going to be handed to them without a lot of hard work. 

They may have their eyes locked on an ambitious goal in the future, but they’re also firmly rooted in what they need to be doing in the present in order to win a race.

Setbacks should not dishearten us. 

Failure is not an end in itself. We should train ourselves to take bad hits in life. 

By using failure as a tool to learn, grow and better ourselves, we will be able to maintain a positive attitude in the face of failure. 

When we experience failure we have get up and start building ourselves again. 

Success is achieved by those who don’t fear failure. 

Don’t let failure hold us back or stop us from manifesting our dreams. 

Some of us seek to avoid disappointment by underachieving, while others seek to avoid it by overachieving. 

We can learn to respond healthily to disappointment by adopting a personal development framework that seeks to understand what happened, checks whether our expectations were reasonable and seeks positive solutions. 

Introspection can be helpful, but rumination is often not. 

Although disappointment is inevitable, staying the course is always a choice. 

Esteban Ocon shows the grit that was ingrained in him by his parents, who literally gave up everything to make his dream of becoming a racing driver a reality. 

Grit is the science of failure, it's how we respond to situations of loss and frustration. 

But to foster grit in ourselves, we first have to become comfortable with failure. 

Grit will make us stronger and more resilient as we advance closer to success. 

We then realize that failure is only a pit stop. 

Learning from failure is one of the biggest challenges we will have in our lives.

Understanding what we did wrong will help us grow mentally. 

After examining what went wrong, we should make a list of our strengths, and begin to construct a plan to build on our talents and abilities. 

What led to our previous successes? 

By looking for ways to capitalize on our strengths, we will be able to act in a proactive manner in the future and achieve our goals.

Formula One teams are perhaps the most highly coordinated in any industry. 

Besides the obvious - how efficiently the crew changes tires, refills fuel and handles pit stops - 

the team has to anticipate, diagnose and fix problems at blinding speed as they happen. 

These are highly skilled crews who work in complete harmony, thanks to endless practice in dealing with any and all contingencies. 

Such coordination can only come with practice and focus on a common goal.

Although we naturally tend to focus on the driver's skills, F1 is an excellent reminder to surround ourselves with like minded people, willing to put in the skill and the effort needed to succeed - we are only as good as our team.

Being open and reflective will help us assess what caused the setback. 

Once we've assessed what went wrong, we can change and improve, not letting that setback define us.

The most important factor is our mindset. 

We should look at failure as part of the journey, not something to avoid, so we can bounce back and not let it define us.   

We have to maintain focus on our ultimate goal. 

Putting failure in context as to how it relates to our ultimate goal will give us a different perspective. 

When we overcome hardship, we develop resiliency, determination and courage. 

We should continually remind ourselves that failure is rarely the end of something, and is usually the beginning of a new phase. 

When things don't go as expected, we need to consider alternative options and take action to address the failure we've experienced. 

Working to correct a mistake rather than dwelling on it, can often help us find the motivation we need to achieve success. 

Failure is inevitable. 

If we don’t learn how to tolerate failure, we will become vulnerable to anxiety and stress, which may even lead us to give up on our goals. 

Acquiring the necessary skills and experience in coping with failure, is a crucial part of success. 

As the pressure to win increases, we have to learn to tolerate imperfection. 

All Formula One drivers live by these values. 

There are no overnight success stories, and every driver has learnt the virtues of failure.

 Consistent action over a long period of time even without seeing results, is the key to making progress and reaching our goals.

There are often many different paths to a potential goal, so we don’t have to stick to one prescribed method of doing something.

We should try different things, experiment, and see what works for us.

It might take a while for progress to catch up with the work we're putting in. 

Progress after all, isn't linear.

Once we've made a decision and we set out to pursue it, what if we realize we've made a mistake? 

Will we be able to survive even if we fail?

It is important to weigh the cost of failure – not just the financial cost, but the emotional one too, and obviously the time and energy lost. 

If we choose a path that could destroy us if its outcome were unsuccessful, it is probably not a wise choice to take. 

But in general, we should remind ourselves that many decisions are reversible. 

Will the trust issues between Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez highlighted at the Brazilian GP spill over into the 2023 season?

A F1 team's second driver tends to be the one challenging the main star, winning once in a while and often, not given the same importance by the team or the fans. 

Second drivers also need the trait of being compliant and keeping the better of the team in mind.

How we choose to cope with disappointment is often a defining decision in our lives. 

We can learn to respond healthily to disappointment by adopting a framework that seeks to:

* understand what happened, 

* checks whether our

   expectations were reasonable, 

*  reevaluates our perceptions and

   behaviors, 

*  seeks positive solutions. 

Introspection can be helpful, but rumination is often not

. 

Although disappointment is inevitable, staying the course is always a choice.

Overcoming the pain of failure will help us shift our focus toward moving forward. 

Although we should let ourselves embrace the moment, we must avoid the negative thoughts that so often creep up and hold us back. 

A negative mindset can cripple us by increasing our natural fear of failure, which might prevent us from carrying on and reaching our goals. 

In these situations we have to try and overcome this negative mindset and replace it with positive thoughts.

Our environment can make a huge difference in how we confront and cope with failure. 

By surrounding ourselves with positive people who motivate us, allow us to express ourselves and give us a new perspective, we can recuperate faster, adjust our plan and continue on our journey toward our goals.

Self-compassion has become one of the most effective strategies for helping those of us who are highly self-critical overachievers make changes from a place of compassion instead of a place of shame. 

We often belittle ourselves with critical narratives when we are struggling, instead of adopting kinder and more mindful ways to motivate ourselves to make the necessary changes. 

The reality is that change after failure is a difficult growth process that involves various stages and mistakes will be made along the way. 

When we set unreasonable expectations for change demanding of ourselves perfection, we leave ourselves little room to deal with set backs. 

Adopting a more self-compassionate stance to grow through failure,  provides us with the opportunity to heal and thrive with self acceptance and pride. 

Charles Leclerc spoke about making big changes versus small improvements in his bid for the 2023 Driver's Championship:

“Whether there is a particular change where I was like, ‘Okay, this I need to change’, not really. It’s just small improvements. After every mistake you learn and you grow, so I’m more mature. But there’s not been a particular change.”

Incremental steps can help us achieve our goals: 

By taking small, regular steps we will eventually reach a point where a far bigger goal has been achieved. 

This concept can be applied to anything and emphasizes just how failure and persistence are some of the most important skills we can develop. 

We can improve our performance at anything if we set our minds to it – but we must keep going even when things get tough. 

Failure is a great opportunity to reevaluate our goals. 

We should be asking ourselves why we failed, how we feel about it and what we should do next.

If we drastically underperformed, then it is a great opportunity to look within and ask why that happened. 

If it is because we didn't put in the necessary work, we should ask how much we really care about what we are doing.

Learning from our mistakes and how we can be better next time is one of the most valuable lessons we can gain from failing.  

Losing or failing happens to everyone, but after the initial shock and anger, we can use some simple tools to overcome the feelings of disappointment and help us carry on and accomplish our goals. 

Here are a few proven ways that will help enable us to bounce back and work towards a better future. 

We should start by finding who and what can build our energy back up:

By being able to recognize what we'll need to feel better and think clearer, we should be able to face the hardships head on.

Surrounding ourselves with friends and family: 

Reaching out to people who are supportive during hard times can prevent feelings of isolation and loneliness. 

“When I do stop racing, there will be a big hole, so I’m trying to generally find things that are going to replace that, that are going to be just as rewarding,” Lewis Hamilton has said about his future after F1.

It can be very difficult to start a new chapter and take our life to new heights. 

The choice is ours to determine how we want to live the rest of our life. 

Most people confine themselves to a limited life, because it is the easier path and most are afraid to make changes. 

There's also the pressure from others to do exactly what we’ve always been told to do, what is “right” or “acceptable” in their eyes.

But if we give in to the opinions of others, we may be depriving ourselves of the opportunity to live a more fulfilling life.

We have to find out for ourselves what we truly want and value in life. 

Logan Sargeant on the eve of his rookie F1 season with Williams:

“I think I would describe myself as someone who has put in a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice”.

Hard work is fundamental if we want to be successful in any field. 

Work isn’t always fun but it's a vital component in any success story. Life is all about opportunity. 

The more we put in the effort, the more opportunities we will be presented with. 

We never regret the opportunities we take, it’s the ones we don’t take that we live to regret. 

Nothing worth having is easy and we have to work hard to earn anything in life. 

Carlos  Sainz of Ferrari explains what adjusting expectations means in F1:

"An F1 car doesn't develop towards one driver or the other.

"An F1 car develops to be quicker and develops on the weaknesses it has, and my job as a driver is to give indications of where the car is weak, it is contrasted with data, and I give that feedback.

"Honestly, the only thing I care about is that the car is faster, and I went through some difficult moments last year.

"We started with a car that required a certain, specific driving style and even in the worst moments, I adapted. I managed a bit too late for my liking, but I adapted to make it happen."

We tend to feel like a failure when circumstances change, leaving us unable to reach our goals and we sometimes try to continue determinedly, without adjusting our expectations.

Instead, this is the time to reconsider our options and reframe our plan in the context of the new situation.

When setting an expectation, it can help if we understand whether we actually have any control over the situation.

To reach more realistic and achievable outcomes, we should try keeping our focus on the areas inside our control - our own actions and choices.

George Russell recognizes the importance of reflecting on the difficulties he faced during his first season with the Mercedes team in order to continue growing as a driver. 

"The things that I learned most from always were those difficult races and the races that I say, relatively speaking, failed, or underperformed in."

Failure is more than just a learning opportunity. 

Being completely honest and reflective will help us assess what caused the failure. 

Once we've assessed what went wrong, we can change and improve, not letting that failure define us.

The most important factor is our initial mindset. 

We should look at failure as part of the journey, not something to avoid, so we can bounce back from it and not let it define us.  

After we understand that failure is necessary, we can plan our course forward. 

Evaluating our mistakes, understanding if there was an execution issue, and not pushing too hard in one direction but looking for different angles to try to reach a better outcome. 

By allowing ourselves the opportunity to see failure as a learning experience and taking the time to reflect on it, we can turn failure into a powerful tool for our progress.

And then we can maintain focus on our ultimate goal. 

Putting failure in its proper context as to how it relates to our ultimate goal will give us a different perspective -  it’s might not necessarily be a failure but a key to future success.