Feeling Defeated? How to Overcome the Things that Keep You Stuck

When things aren’t working, it’s normal to want to give up and forget it. These 10 things can leave you feeling defeated, but they don’t have to!

Feeling defeated is a part of the human condition. There are many times in life when I feel defeated. It happens about once a day. Like yesterday, I wanted to do something simple. Since we live in the south, it is already 90 plus degrees. I wanted to put some blinds up on some windows. Easy enough, right? Apparently not.

If I had to imagine what hell was, for me it would be me sitting in a room putting “assembly required” furniture and toys together. The irony—I have six children and have been doing it for twenty plus years.

Anyway, within ten minutes of trying, I cried frustrated tears, threw things around, and walked out to take a shower. I was super defeated that something as simple as a couple of screws could take me down.

We all feel defeated at times

Most of us feel as if we are the only ones who ever feel defeated. The thing is there isn’t anyone among us, even Chad Thundercock, who doesn’t feel like, despite their best efforts, they aren’t ever going to get where or what they want.

Defeat means you give something your all, and you don’t obtain your goal. That is a really hard thing to accept. If you feel like it isn’t just one goal that you can’t get to, but a series of them, then it makes you feel stuck. If you don’t think that anything good ever happens, no matter how hard you try, you could be stuck in a state of defeat.

10 ways to overcome feeling defeated

Life is like a marathon. You can’t just stop in the middle and lay down. You simply can’t. You will get trampled on, police will tell you to move, and eventually, you will have to do something.

I am not going to lie to you, you might be defeated more than you can imagine. If you stop trying, then you are forever defeated. That old saying, “It is better to die trying, than never to have tried at all,” is absolutely real.

There are many times in life when people have said to me “you are so strong,” but the truth is that we just don’t have a choice. We are dealt what we are dealt. We either pull ourselves together, shake ourselves off and try again, or we stay defeated. I, for one, refuse to believe you want to stay stuck or are ready to give up. If you were, then you wouldn’t be reading this. 

#1 Make smaller more realistic goals. Sometimes you begin to feel defeated because you set goals way too high and unrealistic. There is nothing wrong with setting high expectations unless you put them so high that they are out of reach.

Then you set up a scenario for a self-fulfilling prophecy of never being able to reach your goals. If you feel defeated, try to readjust your goals and your ideation of success. Maybe you just push yourself too hard. 

#2 Reward yourself. If you never recognize a good job done you start feeling defeated. It is important that you look on the positive side sometimes. Give yourself a pat on the back for the things that did go right.

Sure, maybe you didn’t do exactly what you set out to do, but you did do some things right. It is important to recognize those smaller parts that you might be overlooking.

#3 Recognize that EVERYONE fails, it is a part of learning. Everyone fails—everyone. That is the only way we learn lessons and grow. If you didn’t ever fail, you wouldn’t learn how to do things right. If you feel as if you are in the defeat boat alone, know that we ALL feel defeated at times in life. It is natural and it is human.

#4 Try, try, try again. When you feel defeated the hardest thing to do is to pick yourself up and try again, but that is exactly what you have to do. Determination is the key to overcome feeling defeated.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try, try again. If you can’t do it, it is time to readjust your goals to find ones more realistic and better suited for you.

#5 Ask for help. Part of setting unrealistic goals means never stopping to ask for help when you need it. We were all put on earth to survive together. It is hard to ask for help when you want to do something on your own.

But, sometimes to get things done, we should reach out to others. That doesn’t mean you failed or that you couldn’t do it on your own, it means you were smart and courageous enough to get the help from those around you instead of beating your head against the wall when help was available.

#6 Analyze your history. Do you feel defeated often? If you experience an overall feeling of defeat, it might be that you have a negative outlook on life. There are some of us who have a tendency to dwell on the things that don’t go well instead of seeing the things we have going for us.

If you are a half-empty type, then consider changing your attitude to change your feelings of defeat. After all, the only one who makes you feel defeated is you. Learn to let it go. 

#7 Have an overall plan. If you can’t seem to achieve your goals, then maybe it is a problem with not having a plan. If you don’t have a plan to get to where you want to be, how do you ever know where you are going?

Better yet, if you don’t have a plan to your goals, how do you know when you get there? If you feel like you can’t do anything right or you always fail, maybe you jump into situations without preparation. Take the time to step back, look at a situation, and prepare a preemptive strike instead of just striking out. 

#8 Stop comparing yourself to others. Feeling defeated is born out of never feeling as if you get what you want. That sometimes comes from comparing yourself to others. If you look around and it seems like everyone else is where they want to be, and you aren’t even close, then you aren’t looking at things correctly.

Don’t gauge your successes by comparing yourself to someone else. The only way to grow and mature is to do better than you did last time instead of worrying about always beating out someone else. You are only in competition with yourself. The grass truly is always greener.

#9 Try something new. What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If you feel defeated, it is time to switch gears and do something else. It doesn’t make any sense to keep trying to do something that doesn’t work. If you don’t want to fail, stop doing things that set you up to do so.

The good news, whatever keeps you feeling defeated will soon pass. You just have to get past this hurdle and onto the next one.

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