Growing up, in a joint family, one thing i have heard consistently from my environment, was, get the ’best’, be on ‘top’. We have been measured almost all of our lives, right from infant – till now, be it in clothes, education, grades, institutes, organisations last but not the least salaries and job performance.
From a very young age, we’ve been engineered, guided and expected to win races, competitions, exams, reviews and it goes on n on – there’s an unheard list of expectations we face to be there.
Once we start working with many people and to be on the top, comes the new sets of fear – fear of failing, the fear of losing, the fear of embarrassment, fear of negative feedback and hence we start playing small-safe for our existence, and to protect ourselves.
We start focusing so much on winning that we start losing the joy of the journey to get there. The eco of success is so high, that we forget the lessons we learnt from our failures, mistakes, shortcomings and most importantly the fundamental of losing – to treat the event as an experience.
Some situations and some perspectives:
– A clear call out of a winner and that wasn’t you – think to yourself – what weight do you give the trophy, versus the exposure and the learnings, the gratitude to even be able to participate.
– Lost? Stings a little? empathise with others who weren’t participating, the fellow participants who also lost, and celebrate the humanity that won. You gave your best and Let it go! 🙂
– Lost to someone? Perhaps they were better than you. Move on.
– Made a blunder in a presentation, fumbled whilst speaking in public, well…! fine tune, and go again, put your learnings into action and find the opportunity to do it again.
Learn to be Ok with losing, accept gracefully and move on with the experiences you earned and not in hurry to be the best.
Few tips below, to be ok
- Focus on what’s going right.
- Turn comparison into inspiration
- Keep the lessons, but move on
- Reach out and get help
- What you think of yourself matters the most
Remember! carrying the fear of losing will make you lose again and again. So be brave to fail and braver to stand up and try again.
