When you encounter a setback and need to regroup, think back to a time when you won. When you won, you mastered a skill, navigated a tricky negotiation, or otherwise came out on top.

Can you use the same skill or strategy now? Can you adapt that skill or strategy to a new situation?

Sure, circumstances may have changed. But you haven’t always lost or struggled, so think about that time when you got it right.

Jon Acuff lost a job and set out to write a book. At first he struggled, like most people do when they start writing books. But then he remembered a trick that had served him well in the past: the sixty-minute timer. He set a countdown clock on his phone and refused to do anything else except work on the book for sixty minutes straight.

At the end of the hour, he didn’t have the whole book—but he did it again and again, day after day.

Eventually Jon finished the book and published it with the great title Do Over, which also contained the great phrase I used for the title of this post.

Is there a trick you can use? How can you win the way you’ve won before?

Chris Guillebeau is the New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness of Pursuit, The $100 Startup, and other books. During a lifetime of self-employment, he visited every country in the world (193 in total) before his 35th birthday. Every summer in Portland, Oregon he hosts the World Domination Summit, a gathering of creative, remarkable people. His new book, Born for This, will help you find the work you were meant to do. Connect with Chris on Twitter, on his blog, or at your choice of worldwide airline lounge.

Image courtesy of Agnieszka Boeske.