Competing In Life Brings Joy, Well Being
September 25, 2019 at 1:57 a.m.
Competing In Life Brings Joy, Well Being
By Roger Grossman-
As we were talking, this person asked about the concept of “playing not to lose.” We see this at the end of football games a lot. One team is up 10 points with five minutes left to play in the game. Their opponents have the ball. The team in the lead will take a very passive approach to defense in an effort to not give up a big play and force their rivals to move down the field in small chunks. They call it “keeping the play in front of them.”
Baseball has a version of this too. It’s called “no doubles.” The first and third basemen move closer to the baselines to keep balls from rolling into the corners, while the outfielders back up to within a few steps of the warning track so as to keep batted balls from getting to the wall.
The question has always been “am I playing not to lose or am I playing to win?”
I’d like to offer a third option—play to compete.
Michael Jordan often admitted that the fear of losing drove him to be better so he would never have to experience that feeling again.
I feel bad for those kind of people. Having fear of any kind drive your life is really an unsatisfying way to live. Think about it: for people who think that way, succeeding only brings a sense of relief, not joy. There is no feeling of accomplishment. There is no feeling of comfort. Only a sense of having escaped the worst case scenario.
What fun is that?
On the other side are people who live their lives not to lose. Their goal is to just make it through today in no worse shape than they were yesterday. They’d rather play life safe than take any risk that might backfire on them. Their fear is similar to the one described previously, but what they do with that fear is different. They hide from challenges. They bury their profits in a coffee can in the back yard as opposed to investing them with the potential to watch it grow.
Now, that third option.
Life is filled with challenges, some harder than others. Some are more serious. Some are life-threatening.
We all have them, but how we face them bears witness of personalities. We can run out of fear of failure, or we can run and hide in an effort to reduce exposure to risk.
Let me encourage you to consider looking at these obstacles in life as opportunities.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz shaped my thinking on this. He said “In adversity, there is opportunity. Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity.
“I've never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity. Adversity is another way to measure the greatness of individuals. I never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger.”
We have parents today, in a well-meaning effort to protect their children, who remove all of the obstacles from their kids’ lives. They never lose. They never can’t afford something they want. Their kids have no idea what it means to lose. They don’t learn about the process of succeeding.
And they aren’t doing them any favors.
I believe there is a thrill in competing. I believe that the journey, and who you make it with, will ultimately matter more when you look back than how far you made it.
If that’s true, then there should be a joy in competition. You should seek out people who are better than you at something and then accept the challenge of being better. Do it in your marriage and personal relationships, your neighborhood, your business, your philanthropic interests—you will see a change almost immediately.
And it’s not about beating the other people in those venues. It’s about improving yourself. If you do it right, you will not only improve yourself, but those around you will want to raise their level of success to match yours. You do that, and you will be someone everyone wants to be around.
Losing is like a flu shot — in small doses it helps immunize you. Too much medicine too often doesn’t train a body how to fight back.
We should all strive to compete every day — against life — and relish every second of it.
As we were talking, this person asked about the concept of “playing not to lose.” We see this at the end of football games a lot. One team is up 10 points with five minutes left to play in the game. Their opponents have the ball. The team in the lead will take a very passive approach to defense in an effort to not give up a big play and force their rivals to move down the field in small chunks. They call it “keeping the play in front of them.”
Baseball has a version of this too. It’s called “no doubles.” The first and third basemen move closer to the baselines to keep balls from rolling into the corners, while the outfielders back up to within a few steps of the warning track so as to keep batted balls from getting to the wall.
The question has always been “am I playing not to lose or am I playing to win?”
I’d like to offer a third option—play to compete.
Michael Jordan often admitted that the fear of losing drove him to be better so he would never have to experience that feeling again.
I feel bad for those kind of people. Having fear of any kind drive your life is really an unsatisfying way to live. Think about it: for people who think that way, succeeding only brings a sense of relief, not joy. There is no feeling of accomplishment. There is no feeling of comfort. Only a sense of having escaped the worst case scenario.
What fun is that?
On the other side are people who live their lives not to lose. Their goal is to just make it through today in no worse shape than they were yesterday. They’d rather play life safe than take any risk that might backfire on them. Their fear is similar to the one described previously, but what they do with that fear is different. They hide from challenges. They bury their profits in a coffee can in the back yard as opposed to investing them with the potential to watch it grow.
Now, that third option.
Life is filled with challenges, some harder than others. Some are more serious. Some are life-threatening.
We all have them, but how we face them bears witness of personalities. We can run out of fear of failure, or we can run and hide in an effort to reduce exposure to risk.
Let me encourage you to consider looking at these obstacles in life as opportunities.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz shaped my thinking on this. He said “In adversity, there is opportunity. Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity.
“I've never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity. Adversity is another way to measure the greatness of individuals. I never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger.”
We have parents today, in a well-meaning effort to protect their children, who remove all of the obstacles from their kids’ lives. They never lose. They never can’t afford something they want. Their kids have no idea what it means to lose. They don’t learn about the process of succeeding.
And they aren’t doing them any favors.
I believe there is a thrill in competing. I believe that the journey, and who you make it with, will ultimately matter more when you look back than how far you made it.
If that’s true, then there should be a joy in competition. You should seek out people who are better than you at something and then accept the challenge of being better. Do it in your marriage and personal relationships, your neighborhood, your business, your philanthropic interests—you will see a change almost immediately.
And it’s not about beating the other people in those venues. It’s about improving yourself. If you do it right, you will not only improve yourself, but those around you will want to raise their level of success to match yours. You do that, and you will be someone everyone wants to be around.
Losing is like a flu shot — in small doses it helps immunize you. Too much medicine too often doesn’t train a body how to fight back.
We should all strive to compete every day — against life — and relish every second of it.
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