Learning to Lose

I hate losing. We lost our football match yesterday and I intensely disliked the experience. When I was a young child, when things did not go my way I would throw a massive tantrum. I remember playing my brother at tennis and having a mighty strop when he won - sometimes even when he won just a single point! John MacEnroe had nothing on me :-)

I remember on holiday amidst one of these tennis strop incidents my Mum said that it was more important playing than winning - I'm not sure if I have ever accepted that reasoning, in fact for a while I really felt that this advice has caused me to lose my competitive instincts, although I see it a little differently now. When I went to America to sell books I learned the positive side of losing. 90% of people would not buy books from me, but the other 10% who did helped me to make quite a bit of money. I learned that every 'no' brought me closer to a 'yes'. I would review each presentation for ways to improve the next time (although sometime I over analyse way too much which is counter productive - but more of that another time).

Set backs, I believe can contain many great lessons - they show up weaknesses to strengthen; things to do differently and provide motivation to do better next time. Defeat also helps with something I constantly need to work on - humility.

My desire to win came from a belief that I have to be the best at everything I do. I do not think this is bad in itself, but only when it is combined with the realisation and acceptance that I still have a long way to go to be better does it become a positive motivator. I realise more and more (although slowly) as I get older how much I need to improve in all aspects of my life - particularly how I deal with set backs and disappointments when things do not go my way. After all, who wants a 32 year old throwing a strop on a football pitch anyway!