I used to think of surrender in negative terms. It was for losers. Me surrender...never!!! I needed to open my mind. If I jump out of an airplane, I can surrender to the reality of gravity and use a parachute...or I can fight the reality and things won't go well.
In many ways surrender is a starting point rather than an end point. It is accepting (AKA acknowledging) things as being exactly as they are, not how I want them to be, but exactly as they are. From that point, i can make a better determination of what my next action should be.