By India McCarty
Tim Tebow has racked up plenty of wins, but the former NFL star says an early loss taught him an important lesson about overcoming struggles.
“Those scars from losses are also some of the things that motivate you the most,” the former football star said in a recent Instagram video. “When I look back on my career, especially in college, we had 12 rivalry games in my four years. We went 11 and one in those games, and I think about the one more than I think about the 11 combined.”
Tebow said any loss, big or small, “makes a mark” and gave him “such a weight.”
“I was so hurt and sad — not just for me, but for my family and for my team and for my teammates, for my teammates’ family,” he continued. “And I think that scar can either cripple you or propel you. It can cripple you by just sitting and saying ‘What a terrible loss.’ Or it can propel you and say ‘I never wanna go through this again, so now I’m gonna double down on my work. I’m gonna do it…because I don’t wanna go through this again. All of that can propel you if you let it.”
“One of the things I like to encourage young people is ‘You either win, or you learn,’” Tebow concluded.
In the caption for the video, Tebow wrote, “I believe failure should motivate you not cripple you…I still think about one rivalry loss more than all the wins combined. Not because I love the pain, but because it propelled me forward. Because I was able to learn something for the next game and the one after that.”
Related: The One Thing This Ex-NFL Star Says Not to Fail At
“That’s the thing about losing…It can either paralyze you or teach you. You get to pick,” he concluded. “You win some, you lose some. But either way, you should learn.”
Tebow’s football losses propelled him to become a major sports star, as well as one of the most prominent voices in today’s fight against sex trafficking and child sexual abuse.
“This is happening in our backyard,” Tebow said during a recent appearance on “The Shawn Ryan Show.” “It’s overwhelming when you think how much is done by families, by friends, by those in the trusted circle.”
He then addressed parents, saying, “Please be the protector that you’re called to be. Sometimes that means you’re the bad guy, and you don’t give them the same access…Get them on safer platforms…This is a terrible evil that we have to fight back against, and it has to be as a whole.”
Tebow is also about to welcome his first child, a daughter, with wife Demi-Leigh.
“Our greatest blessing,” the couple shared in a joint Instagram post. “We’ve been praying for her long before we knew her, and we’re beyond grateful that God chose us to be her parents. We can’t wait to meet you, baby girl!”
Tebow’s determination to see every loss as an opportunity to learn something has served him well over the years, from football stardom to his upcoming role as a new dad.
Read Next: What Tim and Demi-Leigh Tebow Are Most Excited About as First-Time Parents
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