Psychology of Sport: Don't Fear Losing Embrace Competition
One of my favorite sayings is "Don't fear losing, embrace competition." I love this saying because in a few words in encompasses everything that an athlete should have in his belief system in order to be successful.
Let's start by saying nobody likes to lose period. There is a difference in fearing to lose and disliking to lose. When you fear to lose, you are so concerned about the end result not working out your way you step on the court already set in your mind that you will not win the game. What this does is it psychologically limits your will to give it your best effort. Essentially you are giving up the game before you even start playing it. It's tough enough to play a difficult opponent when you are psychologically ready for it let alone when you are not mentally prepared to play. In extreme cases you may even try to avoid playing the game in order to avoid the outcome. You are limiting your opportunities to improve because you allow your fear to get in the way. Your fear keeps you from trying a move that you normally use but now deem too risky to try because of the level of competition. Your fear keeps you from making shots you normally make because you worry about the speed and skill of your opponents. the list goes on and on.
On the other side of the coin, when you dislike to lose, you are ready to compete and embrace the opportunity to play against a tough opponent. You realize this is an opportunity for you to measure up against a tough opponent and see how you stack up. You are not afraid of trying moves that you normally make because you want to see if you can pull them off against players who are better than you.
Notice the difference between fearing to lose and disliking to lose. With fear comes the psychological obstacle of already conceding defeat. With a dislike to lose you embrace the opportunity to play against tougher opponents and even though you hate to lose you realize when you play the game a loss is always a part of the equation but in the grand scheme of things the opportunity to play against better competition always trumps losing. This is because playing against better competition will always open the door to you improving.
The bottom line is there is only one player who will be considered the best in the world at any sport at any given time. For basketball that is 1 in many millions that play the game around the world. What this means is unless you are one of the best 1% you will always run into someone who is better than you are. The good news is you should embrace that fact because this is the avenue you need to follow in order to improve. Embrace competition.
Let's start by saying nobody likes to lose period. There is a difference in fearing to lose and disliking to lose. When you fear to lose, you are so concerned about the end result not working out your way you step on the court already set in your mind that you will not win the game. What this does is it psychologically limits your will to give it your best effort. Essentially you are giving up the game before you even start playing it. It's tough enough to play a difficult opponent when you are psychologically ready for it let alone when you are not mentally prepared to play. In extreme cases you may even try to avoid playing the game in order to avoid the outcome. You are limiting your opportunities to improve because you allow your fear to get in the way. Your fear keeps you from trying a move that you normally use but now deem too risky to try because of the level of competition. Your fear keeps you from making shots you normally make because you worry about the speed and skill of your opponents. the list goes on and on.
On the other side of the coin, when you dislike to lose, you are ready to compete and embrace the opportunity to play against a tough opponent. You realize this is an opportunity for you to measure up against a tough opponent and see how you stack up. You are not afraid of trying moves that you normally make because you want to see if you can pull them off against players who are better than you.
Notice the difference between fearing to lose and disliking to lose. With fear comes the psychological obstacle of already conceding defeat. With a dislike to lose you embrace the opportunity to play against tougher opponents and even though you hate to lose you realize when you play the game a loss is always a part of the equation but in the grand scheme of things the opportunity to play against better competition always trumps losing. This is because playing against better competition will always open the door to you improving.
The bottom line is there is only one player who will be considered the best in the world at any sport at any given time. For basketball that is 1 in many millions that play the game around the world. What this means is unless you are one of the best 1% you will always run into someone who is better than you are. The good news is you should embrace that fact because this is the avenue you need to follow in order to improve. Embrace competition.
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