We are a divided country at this moment, arguably more polarized than I have witnessed in my lifetime. Things that used to be accepted by everyone, including verifiable facts, have now been reduced to simply “seeing” what you want to see, and that’s often biased by the side that your “team” takes. One unintended side effect of our distorted thinking in this moment is being able to accept stress, frustration, adversity, and yes – failure. The hope this way is that we change direction and head back to the days of accepting truth, and congratulating our opponents when we come up short. Healthy sportsmanship promotes fairness, and it also encourages us to be our best selves.
What it means to come up short
Failure in life is something all humans experience, so it behooves us to learn how to handle tough days in healthy and effective ways. Nobody I know likes to lose, but what I find interesting are the differences in the ways in which people handle losing. Two general approaches commonly experienced by people include:
A.) Acceptance and healthy growth. Assuming the game was fair, a healthy-minded individual will own the loss, congratulate the opponent, and once emotions subside begin to retroactively examine what went wrong, and how things can be improved the next time out. These individuals choose not to feel shame from the loss, but are instead happy engaging in fair play, and determined to learn from the experience in order to witness future self-improvement. This is a healthy psychological mindset, and what we commonly see when studying high-achieving people.
B.) Unacceptance and thwarted growth. An unhealthy way to handle adversity is to immediately assume cheating occurred, and to quickly point the finger outward and blame anyone and anything for the poor performance. It can be argued that this is a waste of energy, or at minimum not the best place to direct energy if the goal is to continue to grow and improve for the future. Additionally, displaying poor sportsmanship can also steal from would-be future team success, as the energy that would have been devoted toward “building a better future mousetrap” is instead diverted to efforts that rarely lead to better team dynamics and outcomes. As you might imagine, people with this kind of mindset spend an inordinate amount of time playing the victim, when they would be better served using their energy toward self-improvement.
Make healthy choices!
When you read the coping responses detailed above, where did you find yourself? What’s great is that regardless of how you view yourself in this very moment, even if you aren’t real proud of the ways you handled adversity in the past, you can carve out a new future beginning today! If we accept that none of us are perfect, and that we all experience stress, adversity, frustration, and yes — failure, only then can we begin to accept there are going to be tough days ahead in our lives. The question, therefore, becomes one of what will we do with our adversity? What choice will we make when dealing with a bad day? We could choose to point our finger outward and blame the opponent, or we could instead turn inward and simply ask what can I do different and better the next time out?
As we work toward being better sports, and focusing on future self-improvement, we can also show genuine respect toward our adversaries, and thank them for bringing out the best in us through healthy and fair competition.
Final thoughts
In sports, we see adversity at every turn, from unplanned injuries to unexpected upset losses. Life is similar in that adversity and misfortune lurks around every turn, and how we respond to tough circumstances is what will ultimately determine our character, as well as likelihood for future success.
drstankovich.com
adversity, coping, failure, habits, health, mental, psychology, sports, sportsmanship, Stress, toughness
