You may not like the game of cricket, but by its' very nature it is a rich source of goal achievement/success ideas.

Because the game is played over 5 days, and can end in a draw, it is misunderstood in a lot of countries which like high speed result driven sports.

Of course cricket *can* be high speed, and *is* results driven, but I'm more interested in the mental aspects involved with the ebb and flow over 5 days.

Recently finished in Australia was a series of matches between England and Australia.

It's played every 2 years, for a trophy called The Ashes, and the competition goes back well over 100 years.

The Australians have been dominant for a long long time, and there was much jubilation here in 2005 when England won The Ashes for the first time in 20 years.

However, this time in 2007, it's the turn of the Aussies to celebrate - not only did they win back the prize, they also completed a 5-0 whitewash of winning all 5 games in the series.

That has only been done twice before, and not for 85 years, and it's this feat which is the point of this article.

I wrote a previous article called 'Fantastic Formula Following', about how the Australians decided in the 1970s that they were not competing well enough on the world stage in sport in general.

They decided to do something about it, and set about a plan.

They followed the successful strategies of other countries, most notably East Germany (but without the drugs), and ended up after 20 years with a haul of Olympic gold medals, and deep rooted dominance in many sports.

They also developed their fearsome reputation for only accepting victory, never defeat.

Coming second is coming nowhere in their view.

So, when they lost The Ashes back in 2005, the country was desolate, and the team was absolutely torn apart in the press.

What kind of reaction do you think that brought out in the team?

Did they crawl away and hide?

Did they sulk and blame others?

Hardly

What they did was to absorb the defeat into their bones, they made sure they felt it so keenly, that come this series in 2007, they unleashed a fury on the England team which just blew them over.

In other words, they bounced back from a set back stronger and even more focused than before.

This is classic Australian sport, and it's also classic goal achievement/succes theory.

It's all there on the screen and in the papers for anyone to soak up, if they choose to, and can appreciate what they see.

Setbacks in life are part of life.

Anyone who thinks they can totally avoid them is quite simply wrong.

The key is not how many setbacks you hgave, it's how you come back after them, so the next time you have a setback, cast your mind to the Australian cricket team, and ask yourself what they would do!